Every job seeker would have this word written in their resume – Microsoft Office Proficiency.
What Exactly is Microsoft Office Proficiency?
A Microsoft Office Proficient should be able to create an error-free, beautifully formatted document with header, footer, page number & Page breaks.
In Excel, they should be able to handle a large volume of data, format, sort, filter and create Pivot Tables for better visualization of Data.
In PowerPoint, the ability to make aesthetically appealing stellar presentation with graphics, images, GIFs, Animation is considered good proficiency.
Handling Microsoft Outlook like a pro to manage emails, create separate folders, track tasks, manage calendar, set reminder, marking them complete, and most important, getting things done quickly with these productivity tools.
This should not be overwhelming. It should be easy to do, and management expects everyone to be proficient in Microsoft Office.
It has been years since the Microsoft Skills have become mandatory for every person coming into the workforce – whether administration, data handling, HR or even the Managerial Position.
A research by IDC concludes that Microsoft Office is one of the top three skills desired by any employers next to oral and written communication Skills.
Possessing Microsoft Skills not only merely helpful in typing docs and tabulating number, rather they help us to get more productive, efficient and handle and present data professionally effectively than ever. Microsoft Office is the most effective, accessible, and easy to use software’s.
Excel is often used in accounting and finance for its ability to calculate and compute complex numbers. Even non-financial businesses use Excel because of its unbeatable ability to organize data in tables & for updating, organizing, and displaying the data nicely.
It is highly used in administration and managerial level to analyze data quickly and present to management.
It even supports Visual Basic Applications to create macros to automate functions that increase efficiency.
In fact, the Pivot Tables and Dashboards are inevitable when it comes to analysis and reporting. You must up your proficiency in Excel to master these functions.
Everyone would have made a basic presentation in Schools and workplaces to present the work. But PowerPoint comes handy to make it visually appealing and effective.
Its intelligence in generating different design ideas for the slides is becoming so popular nowadays. Other than just suggestion, it allows you to use the plenty of shapes and icons that are in-built and even allows you to import illustrations and graphics from the internet while working.
In short, anyone can make a stellar presentation with a quick guidance and practice.
It is always wise to have a most sough after skill in hand to increase employability& cement a position in job industry.
While Microsoft Office is filled with short cuts and methods to create attractive and easy to manage documents, a comprehensive hands-on training can help you to master the hooks and corners of the Microsoft Office package within just 3 days.
Simply follow the step-by-step instructions and learn the art of creating professional business documents easily every time.
With this training you will be able to Create Impressive Proposals, Charts & Presentations to Woo Clients.
Advanced Excel FAQ:
What is Advanced Excel, Why should you learn it, How to learn Advanced Excel in Singapore
– A Fast Start Guide to Becoming an Expert at Advanced Excel Skills
Every organization uses Microsoft Excel in their day to day work. Most employees & managers know Excel to some extent. And they are able to survive the day by doing things in one way or another… often the long and inefficient way.
Learning to use Microsoft Excel well goes beyond the basics. That’s where the Advanced Excel skills come in handy.
Microsoft has bundled in hundreds of useful functions and features, that can do wonders, save a lot of time, and improve your efficiency & productivity.
Each new version of Excel is packed with ever richer functionality, and provides more ways to use Excel to its utmost at any workplace.
Microsoft is striving to add those features that can simplify complex things, and make it easier to do data entry, perform computations, and even analyze data & present the insights into actionable information useful for clients and colleagues or the management in nicely created reports and dashboards.
So how come very few people are familiar with these Advanced Excel Features & Functions?
Do You Know These Advanced Excel Tricks?
Partly because Microsoft is a software company, and not so much an education company. They add new Excel formulas, features, shortcuts, buttons, charts types, and options, but Microsoft doesn’t spend the time in educating everyone about these new enhancements in the time they deserve.
Microsoft simply blog about it, updates the documentation, and then wait for you to figure it how somehow. Most greatly useful features languish, forgotten in the documentation, hardly ever used…
Also, partly to blame is our education system, which does not start teaching us the key Excel skills that are essential in the job. Almost every student now works on a laptop or a tablet, using documents & spreadsheets for every report, presentation or assignment they do. But our schools often leave you to figure how to be productive with these basic tools.
Very few schools or colleges have mandatory Excel or Word Training. It’s no wonder that when a fresh graduate joins the workforce, they often take ages to do simple things, stumbling and faltering along their journey to do even basic things in Excel, let alone the Advanced Excel Techniques that are required to be productive.
Why Should I learn Advanced Excel?
That’s a common question for people using Excel at workplace. If you don’t even know what Excel can do, why will you be interested in learning it. You need to see the features to believe it, and to see your own blind spots.
Do You Know These Advanced Excel Tricks?
Increased Productivity With Advanced Excel Tips & Tricks
If you care about getting the job done faster, without any errors, then it is in your interest to improve your competence in Excel. You don’t have to learn all the 500 plus functions to master Excel. In fact, you can already be more productive if we can know and use more than 10-15% of the Advanced Excel features and functions we have listed below.
Better Job Prospects With Better Excel Skills
New job prospects & Career switch options also open up for those who can manipulate and juggle data easily in Excel. Many higher end analyst jobs in the financial and accounting, sales, marketing, management & consultancy areas require good analytical & decision making skills.
Better Presentations With Excel Charts, Reports & Dashboards
Plus, With Advanced Excel Charts & Reporting features, you can be a star in the boardroom too. Most client presentations will need some amount of data and analysis to be presented, which can easily be analyzed and tabulated in Microsoft Excel, provided you know how to do it quickly.
So now you know the key reasons why you should learn Advanced Excel, you may be wondering, what are the key features of Excel that can considered as “Advanced“.
What Really Are Advanced Excel Skills?
Knowledge of multiple useful features and functions, plus the ability to use them at short notice is what we can call as Advanced Excel skills. To name a few, you must be able to know and perform the following things in Excel well.
A Listing of Key Excel Skills You Must Have
FASTER SETUP & DATA ENTRY WITHIN EXCEL
Setup Columns Quickly using Auto fill options. For example, you can fill Months or Quarters easily by filling in just the first value. Similarly, you can generate sequence numbers from any starting point to any ending number.
Do Quicker Data Entry by using Auto complete of repeating values as Excel picks up the filling values using pattern recognition
Generate Sequence Numbers quickly With Auto Fill & FlashFill options
LOADING EXTERNAL FILES & DATA
You must be able to Bring External data into Excel from any kind of source – be it Text files, CSV files, XML, Web Data or Database files. Plus, Excel now makes it easier to bring in data from the Cloud Apps like SalesForce, Zendesk, QuickBooks & over 200 app integrations, from PowerQuery, now built into Excel, from version 2013 onwards.
All is not good just by loading the data. You will have to clean & de-duplicate it. Fill in blanks, handle null or missing values, and then fix the dates to become useable. You’ve often got to convert dates formatted as YYYYMMDD or DDMMYY into something that’s more humane – DD-MMM-YY or MM/DD/YY. Obviously the actual settings will depend on your country, regional settings & preferences. But it is often required. This requires you to use PowerQuery, or use Text functions to extract the date, month or year from strangely formatted dates.
EASIER DATA FORMATTING
After cleaning the data comes the job of making it easier to read and identify the key data points.
Here comes the Data Formatting options. Formatting Data makes it easier to read and present data. With Conditional formatting options, it is easier to highlight data based on any simple or complex condition or criteria. By highlighting data, you can make it easy to the winners and losers & spot issues and errors. Highlight the highest values, lowest values, values between a range, values outside a range, or set up your own rules, based on calculations.
LEVERAGE ON IN-BUILT EXCEL FUNCTIONS
Good knowledge of Advanced Excel Functions is essential to get more mileage out of Excel. Microsoft’s Excel functions are divided into multiple categories:
Categories of Microsoft Excel Functions
Lookup Functions like VLookup, Index, Match, Offset, Indirect allow you to find anything from within Excel tables and Master data. Pick the employees name based on Code, or find out who secured the highest or lowest sales numbers.
Statistical Functions like Median, Mode, Standard Deviation, Variance allow you to analyze data statistically. You can find out the median, standard deviation or variance, allowing you better insights into the data as to what happened, why it happened, and what is most likely going to happen.
Analysis Functions like Correlation & Regression, Trend Analysis & Forecasting further the statistical functions into forecasting, and allowing you to make better projections, and better decisions based on the happening trends.
Excel Formula Groups
Logical functions like If, Sumif, Countif, Iferror allow you do things conditionally – check if a condition is met, add or count based on conditions being met or not met, and even check and handle errors from happening.
Date & Time functions for finding todays date, time, difference between dates, hours, year, month, days, weekdays. This allows you to do time based calculations, buckets of date ranges, and even create ageing analysis based on range values.
Database functions that treat the entire data set as a database, and allow you to aggregate results using Dsum, DAverage, Dmax, Dstdev. This can be useful when working with big data
Text Functions to extract, clean and manipulate data – Left, Right, Mid, Char, Len, Fixed, Trim, TextJoin help in fixing erroneous data, and picking certain batch codes, lot numbers, region or product codes from within serial numbers.
Financial Functions like PV, NPV, PMT, IRR, Accrued Interest, Future Value, Mirr etc. are useful for analyzing the current, present and future value of things. Interest calculation, accruals, monthly installments, interest rates etc. can be easily worked out by using these advanced Financial functions of Excel.
PIVOT TABLES FOR QUICK ANAYSIS
Use the Pivot Table feature of Microsoft Excel, which is the fastest way to get some high level summary from your data set. Pivots allow you to slice and dice the data in numerous ways, and analyze it using different dimensions easily, without writing any formulas or macros. A pivot table is the first thing people turn to when they want some quick analysis or summary on the data.
With the help of Slicers, Timelines, Report Filter Pages, you can look at the same data in multiple ways, multiple dimensions, and in multiple filter flavors.
These are all great ways to analyze information quickly with Excel – a strong reason to learn Advanced Pivot Table techniques of Microsoft Excel.
Use Pivot Tables For Quicker Analysis of Data
In fact, knowledge of Pivot tables is often tested in interview questions for jobs requiring a good amount of business analytics. Even in days where most companies world class ERP software with hundreds of canned reports, often raw data is extracted from these ERP packages and combined with external market data, manual forecasts and then analyzed using Pivots.
Competence in Advanced Pivot Table analysis techniques are are must if you want to get into business analytics. Strangely, for the amazing things pivots can do, they are surprisingly easy to master. I often see managers and senior executives surprised at the simplicity, and lament that they missed out on this easy feature for the past several years, relying on junior executives to churn out the reports.
No harm in getting the ground staff to run the reports, but sometimes they do not have the acumen or sensory acuity of understanding the big picture. The juniors often report the obvious, without being able to get that helicopter view of the data.
Pivots are the easy, low hanging fruit that you should begin with, for it brings the biggest bang for the buck. You can easily master it in an afternoon, or in a pivot table masterclass and win an edge with this winning Advanced Excel trick up your sleeve.
CHARTS TO VISUALIZE INFORMATION
Excel Dashboards To Visualize Information Quickly
Create Charts from raw or summarized data to visualize the information quickly. Multiple columns and thousands of rows make it very difficult to see the big picture and spot a trend.
How To Convert Excel Data into Charts
A visual is worth a thousand words. An Excel chart can depict the past sales of many months or quarters, returned products or problem tickets created/solved each month, and it becomes much easier to spot a trend by looking at a high level chart more than by looking at a sea of rows and columns
There are multiple kinds of charts in Excel that can make boring data look stunning. Choose from Bar & Column charts, Pie & Donuts charts, Waterfall charts or Line Charts. You can also create combination charts showing column and lines at the same time, allowing you to measure 2 different metrics at one time.
Excel charts are easy to master, and there’s a lot to choose from. You can easily format them, add legend, titles, colors, and just about tweak every aspect with a mouse click. Mastering such Excel Charting tips can take you far in the boardroom, with better looking charts & visuals.
MACROS IN EXCEL TO RECORD & AUTOMATE STEPS
Macros are the one Advanced Excel Feature that allows you to extend Microsoft’s products and take them to newer heights. You can create your own functions & automations in Excel to perform multiple steps in a short time, at a single button click.
Macros are heavily used in Banks, financial institution, and in accounts departments of almost each and every company. They are the staple of the data enthusiasts who like to do things just once.
Excel VBA Macros allow you to load new data automatically each month, collate and tabulate multiple sheets & multiple workbooks, and create reports & charts automatically for each new period.
Macros are recorded or written and edited in a special language created by Microsoft – Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) in short.
While learning VBA may take some time, this is the secret weapon that separates the wizards of Excel from the amateurs. Once an Excel macro is written and tested, it can easily be deployed to the masses. Your colleagues and users needn’t know the complexities or the logic of how things are done.
Macros Automate Routines & Execute Faster
For example, you could create your own custom Financial Accounting Software, just by using Excel. Using Forms, you can get the users to key in the sales, expenses, and generate invoices or receipts at a click. And a Cash Flow Statement, a Profit & Loss Statement, or a Balance Sheet could be generated at any time, collating all the data keyed in so far.
This allows the users to get more done with Excel, and everyone doesn’t have to learn the technicalities of generating such reports at any time.
VBA Macro writing and editing skills are considered Advanced, because it requires you to learn the specific way Excel refers objects like workbooks, sheets, rows and columns. VBA is a full blown programming language – allowing you to write loops, conditions, procedures, functions, and tag them to buttons, mouse movements etc.
This one advanced Excel skills can make you indispensable in the whole department. I have known several people who have a clout in the company because of their deep knowledge of the system, and that they have written the backend systems that the company uses in its day to day operations. Such deep knowledge is always in demand.
SHARING & PROTECTION OF DATA
Today Microsoft Excel is improved and enhanced to allow multiple colleagues and friends to work together on the same file. You can track changes of who did what, and you can even protect the information in such a way that only those authorized to see or edit can do so, protecting information from prying eyes.
Sharing & Protection Options in Excel
With Advanced Data Protection techniques in Microsoft Excel, you can hide sheets, write protect them to make them view only, or allow only certain rows, columns or cells to be editable. This gives a tremendous advantage while working with multiple people and multiple sheets.
With the integration of OneDrive, you can truly collaborate with your team, having multiple edits and track changes as they happen. It is much easier to edit, pick the changes you like, or remove/revoke changes that you do not approve of.
Share & Protect Data Accurately With Amazing options
If you haven’t visited the Review menu of Excel, you’d be surprised with the multiple options available under the hood, that allow for Collaboration, Sharing, Editing & Protection of Documents.
SIMPLE, COMPLEX, ADVANCED TEMPLATES
Almost everything you do in Excel has been done before. So if you are making a calendar, or a cash flow report, a monthly report, attendance report, Result of Students, Invoices or Statement of accounts, Expense claims or Employee Leave forms for the team, there is a ready made template to do so.
Not just one, you have hundreds of templates to choose from. These ready made templates are available to any Microsoft Office user to use and save time.
Save Time With Sophisticated Excel Templates
On top of this, you can create your own company wide or departmental templates, that can be used month after month, quarter after quarter without any changes. Consolidation becomes a breeze if you all use the same template.
Plus, tracking & merging of multiple changes can be done with the hidden Track & Merge option. You can’t find this button in the standard toolbar, and need to enable it separately. A golden gem of a function. Even seasoned pros have been unaware of this super cool advanced excel functionality.
Print Beautiful Reports & Charts With Advanced Excel Techniques of Page Setup
With Advanced Page setup, you can decide what you want printed and what not. You can add headers, footers, page numbers, logos etc. straight out of the box. But Excel goes beyond this into giving you fine control over the rows, columns, and area that will be printed.
Excel Page Setup Options
You can control whether you want to print grid lines, draft copy or are you printing the final copy. The current date or time can be printed too, along with a lot of meta data – file names, sheet names, page numbers etc. provide you with a fine control. Printing order – collated or by page, and auto fit to handle orphan printing of some columns can be a real paper saver.
Trees will love you for learning and using the page setup options within Excel well.
ADVANCED SORTING & FILTERING
Almost everyone figures out how to sort data on any column – in either ascending or descending order. But Excel allows you to perform custom formatting – based on your values, and your defined order.
Sorting for multiple, unlimited levels is a boon too. This breaks the limited 3 level sorting of previous versions, allowing you to sort as many levels as you please.
Filters have improved much in the past 10 years. Now you can easily filter the Top 10 or Bottom 10 values, filter by color, filter by values, and even filter by specific text or dates. There filter feature helps you to actually define the period of data or values that you want to focus on, and eliminate the rest. Master this simple feature, and get to your important data points quickly.
Filtering the values to focus on at any given time removes clutter and makes it easy to visualize information in Excel.
FORMATTING DATA INTO TABLES – A SUPER SIMPLE WAY TO ADD MAMMOTH FUNCTIONALITY, For Free!
Microsoft added the functionality to treat data as a table in Excel 2007. But the name they gave to the button that begins this functionality is a showstopper.
Format as Table in Excel
When you look at “Format As Table”, all you’ll see is multiple coloured data tables. And many an Excel enthusiasts pull away, thinking its just colors… They fail to learn the mammoth hidden functionality of Excel beneath this mis-labeled button.
But once you go over this hump, you are on your way to explore gold with Formatted Tables.
Since 2007, Excel Tables have come a long way. Now they have smart range names, auto fill and auto spill ranges, and use range names in calculations. There are several magic cells in Excel Tables, that can perform additional tasks too.
Becoming adept at using Table features of Excel will speed up your analysis.
Further, tables can be filtered, sorted, sliced. For date based data, you can add a Timeline, which is a slicer based of dates, but much better.
There you have it… These are just some of the advanced features of Excel. Learning about additional things like Custom Formatting, Range Naming, Working With multiple Worksheets, or combining data from multiple workbooks, consolidation, What-if analysis, Scenario Manager, Data Tables, Data Validation etc. will take your Advanced Excel knowledge to a much higher level. There is simply too much functionality to talk about in one article.
Suffice is to say that if you want to get done more, cheaper & faster, then learn some of these Advanced Excel Features, pronto!
How long does it take to learn excel?
There is no simple answer when you are beginning to learn a new skills. To learn Advanced Excel tricks is going to be the same too. It also depends on your interest, commitment, and the amount of time you are wiling to spend in learning it.
I would say that learning Advanced Excel tips and tricks is more of a journey.
You learn some concept, begin to apply it, and then learn some more. While learning, you will come across new concepts, see new problems, and seek newer ways to handle these challenges. This step by step approach will open your eyes, develop a keener sense of Excel capability, and develop your Excel muscle step by step, day by day!
I have been a student of Microsoft Excel for the past 30 years. And still I find new things, and new ways of doing the same things. It has been a fun and exciting journey and I love challenges in Excel.
Every once in a while, someone will send me a long and complex looking formula, and dissecting it, understanding it, and learning from it makes us all better. Helping others with their Excel has been one good way that has helped me grow my Excel competence.
Can you teach yourself Excel?
Yes, of course you can teach yourself Excel. And you can even learn Excel at home. All the same, I would recommend a step by step approach in self-learning of Advanced Excel . Based on your interest, it is safe to divide Excel Training into a few sections.
First begin with understanding Range Names, Conditional Formatting, Tables and Pivot Tables.
Then pick up more complex Logical & Lookup Functions to delve deeper.
After this, you can then focus on Financial or Statistical or Date Functions based on interest or usage within your organization.
No point in learning Excel for the sake of learning. You must apply it first. So find a challenging situation within your company or department, and seek to build a solution to fix it is a good way to get started in building your Excel muscles.
It is safe to say that if you begin learning Excel techniques by using this method, in 2-3 months you will see a big improvement in your understanding of Excel.
And in 6 months time you can be at a pretty advanced level in your Excel usage and your added competence will give you more confidence within your organization.
How Can I Learn Advanced Excel Faster?
If you find this route of self-learning difficult or too long, it may be better to develop and learn advanced excel skills in a more systematic and methodical manner.
I would recommend going for a formal training on Microsoft Excel. Based on your level, and interest, you can choose an Advanced Excel Training in your city or suburb. This is the best way to learn advanced Excel.
Most Advanced Excel courses are 2-3 days long, depending on their coverage.
Make sure you join a workshop where lots of exercises and hands-on is provided, and not just a demo of Excel functionality.
It’s because we all learn better by doing it ourselves, rather than just watching someone else do it.
Plus, doing the exercises yourself will expose you to the common pitfalls and mistakes, which can then be rectified with the trainer/facilitator, and with worked examples and samples, you will gain a better understanding of the topics.
Since 2003, Intellisoft Systems has been providing short courses on Excel at all levels:-
We also have Excel training for creating management charts and reports – called the Excel Dashboard MasterClass. For those looking to automate Excel, you may choose to enroll in the 3 Day Practical, hands-on, VBA Macro Programming workshop.
What is Advanced Excel Training?
A short Excel training of 2-3 days will cover the key concepts. In such a formal Excel training program, the notes, handouts, exercises & sample examples are readily available for you to begin using immediately.
I personally find learning anything in a short course to be more beneficial. It covers the concepts quickly, and then I can focus on the details based on my interest areas.
Plus the best thing for a formal training is that we have a trainer or facilitator available to ask questions along the way.
Learning in a sheltered environment is better as newbies often stop when they stumble upon initial concepts and often give up completely.
What are the Topics in Advanced Excel Training?
Make sure your chosen Excel training at least covers the most important topics, at the very least. Our 2 day Advanced Excel course in Singapore covers all these, and much more, with practical examples and exercises.
If you are looking for the Best Excel training, look at some key things to consider, like time, speed, convenience & availability. If you can attend classroom training, I’d absolutely recommend it.
At Intellisoft, we provide both Classroom and e-learning via Zoom classes for Advanced Excel. You can choose from several dates available. These are extremely popular, and we have over 20+ years of running Excel classes.
All of our trainers come with years of industry experience. They have a passion for training and sharing their tips and tricks of Excel with you. You’d absolutely love our best advanced excel training course.
How Do I Get Excel Certified?
Most Advanced Excel courses will come with a certificate of Attendance. This is sufficient for most people, for real competence in Excel is more important that a certificate. Intellisoft offers such certificate of attendance for all of its 2 day Excel courses & workshops in Singapore.
To boost your resume & build your LinkedIn profile, a well recognized official certification in Excel is required!
There are 2 major certifications you can choose from
Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) in several Microsoft technologies. For Excel, you can go for the Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) certification. There are 2 levels – Associate and an Expert level. Better to go for the MOS Excel Associate level first, which is an easier Excel Exam. Then opt for the Expert MOS certificate in Excel. Beware that Microsoft certifications are pretty expensive.
Another option is to go for the extremely popular certification from the International Computer Driving License (ICDL Foundation). In Asia, this certificate is available at the Foundation and Advanced levels.
At Intellisoft Training, we are the official partners with Microsoft, and ICDL Asia, and are authorized to administer both the certifications in Excel. You can choose the Microsoft one, or the ICDL one, based on your preference.
The ICDL Certification is widely recognized by the Singapore government ministries. It is a tad cheaper in terms of the exam assessment fee too.
Plus, the Singapore government subsidizes the Advanced Excel Training Fee & Certification fee, allowing permanent residents and Singapore citizens to get certified in Advanced Excel skills. It is considered an Essential skill for office use, and is considered a must have for all office executives, analysts & managers. Do contact us for more information on this.
Next Steps: For Enhancing Your Spreadsheet Skills With Advanced Excel Training
With so much demand for Advanced Excel skills, so rich & useful functionality in Excel, and an easy path to victory with Excel, what are you waiting for. Grab the next chance to explore Excel in greater depths. Enroll in a classroom training, an e-learning training, or attend a Zoom class. Whatever it takes, just get started, right away.
Excel is the secret Swiss Army knife in your data analysis toolbox.
Just imagine, how far you can go with a proper, formal Advanced Excel Training! The opportunities are limitless, and so is your future!
Project managers are the amazing people in companies, that get the job done. They strategize, plan, build, enhance and repair, and finally get the project delivered.
Constantly fighting tight resources, a short timeline, and minimum budgets, they handle multiple projects at the same time, and still are able to deliver to the client.
Their main job is to handle people, tasks, timeline, resources and even the overall Project goals & objectives.
It is not an easy job to be the Project Manager. Since the job is bound to have frequent changes, it can easily become confusing, chaotic and unorganized.
Therefore, it is even more critical that a project manager is a master of the management software that can save his time and increase efficiency.
Using & following a trusted, tested and reliable project management tool, Project Managers make it easy to organize, collaborate, and administer.
Microsoft Project, the ultimate management software has all the necessary features to help efficiently planning of projects, managing the resources, responding to issues, and keep all the authorities involved.
Regardless of the kind of project you handle, Microsoft Project will create a positive impact in Planning & Executing the project.
Improved Planning and Scheduling
Project planning and scheduling is the primary stage of a Project management which decides the whole flow of the work.
With Microsoft Project, managers can easily create an actionable plan and prioritize the tasks to drive the project towards a success.
It becomes easy to allocate resources, identify dependencies, set up deadlines, and to create project deliverables in no time.
Microsoft Project helps to lay a strong foundation for a successful project and to efficiently manage the project until the end.
Better Collaboration
Teamwork is the mandatory aspect of a successful Project. A team can comprise of members from various departments.
They are required to handle their day-to-day responsibilities and to contribute to multiple projects at a time which in turn makes it difficult to be present in all the discussions & meetings.
This communication gap can create unnecessary delays in the projects and problems that can waste a lot of precious resources.
A huge advantage of the Microsoft Project is that it makes effective collaborations in a project extremely simple.
All the important insights, project timeline and status updates can be accessed by all the authorized team members with a single click and important alerts can be automatically sent to the relevant parties.
Budget Management
The ultimate use of the Microsoft Project software is the budget management. Since the resource management becomes effective, its easy to see where the budget is being spent, and if it is allocated properly.
You can then play what-if analysis, and see projections of the project – if it is delayed slightly, delayed a lot, and major breakdowns… what will be the cost of the completed project.
It is also effective in real-time management and update of Budget allocation & usage for better understanding and streamlining.
Remote Working
In view of the uncertain situations like current pandemic, it is absolutely impossible to stay in touch and discuss physically with all the department.
The physical location does not bind modern projects.
It could be tough to manage the scattered workforce With Microsoft Project, it becomes easy to manage and lead the teams effectively.
The tasks assigned are clear and legible that there is no chance of confusions or misunderstandings.
Enhanced Productivity
Another major advantage of using Microsoft project software is that it optimizes your decision-making process and improves productivity at work.
As all of the important details can be found in a single place, you can always make informed decisions within the shortest time.
In our childhood, most of us used to be so crazy about art supplies and colors.
Many would continue to have such obsessions.
Being creative and artistic is definitely a boon.
Isn’t it interesting to grab the necessary tools to enhance the skill set?
Isn’t it exciting to change you interest into a profession?
Well, if the answer is Yes, Come and Grab that Skill right now!
Adobe Creative Cloud Suite (Adobe CC) has a variety of tools to enhance your skill and interest to arts and creativity.
Adobe Illustrator is one such tool, which is efficient, easy to pick up and the wonders it creates is infinite.
Adobe Illustrator is a powerful app that is highly used in creating logos, textual styles, presentations, in sequential order and numerical pictures, posters, and flex.
It is generally well-known in graphic designing businesses as it is a vector based software.
This means that there is no image degradation – whether you blow the image to a mammoth size, or reduce it to a small stamp.
It provides a sophisticated tracing and text manipulation commands with color separation features as well.
Adobe Illustrator is good to start for freshers as they can learn this software easily, from the beginning, step by step.
Where is Adobe Illustrator used:
We can design Banners, Wedding & Invitation cards and the Images used on various websites, especially on e-commerce and business websites.
It has a variety of ready made tools which give you a variety of shapes.
We can make an illustration/ image of any size start from small dot to large flex.
Importing, editing, and modifying of images can be done within one platform.
It is comfortable if it is used simultaneously with the other product of Adobe.
Even the Top companies including AirBnb, Amazon, Zendsk, Hewlett Packard extensively hire Graphic Designers to update their products consistently.
Guess what?
To be an Illustrator expert, you don’t need to have any special skills as only practice & experience will teach you within less span of time.
If you are interested & good at art and creation, then you will become professional within no time.
The best way to learn all the features of Illustrator is by joining Adobe Illustrator Course in Singapore.
The best part, you can attend this Course Live online.
Microsoft Excel is one of the most used software at work. People who claim to know Microsoft Excel software mostly are the ones with basic or intermediate knowledge & understanding of Excel. The productivity increases only when we make the most out of the useful software, and gain mastery.
There are many hidden gems and short cuts within Excel, that hardly anyone talks about. I am amazed when people with years of Excel experience tell me they haven’t heard about these. What a waste of time…
‘Let us discuss in this series the ultimate tips in Excel that will make things snappier, and make your co-workers say, “how did you do that??”. They will save a lot of time for you too and improve your productivity.
Tip Number 01 INSERT SERIAL NUMBERS IN A FLASH
What do we when we have to insert Serial Numbers in Excel? We type the number 1 in the cell A1, then 2 in the cell A2, and finally select both the cells & drag the mouse pointer until we get the required serial numbers generated. Right?
But what happens when we need Serial numbers until 100? 200? Or more?
Do we keep dragging? Certainly not!
There is an ultimately easy way in which you can just flash fill the serial numbers to whatever value needed.
Here are the steps:
Input Number 1 in the first cell
Select Fill > Series from Editing Ribbon of Home Tab
Home> Fill > Series
Select Columns from the Dialog box, give Step & Stop values and Hit OK.
NOTE: If you are looking to Fill Rows instead of columns, just select Rows in the dialog box and follow the same steps.
Bet you didn’t know this trick… Well, now you do.
Tip Number 2 FORGET COPY+PASTE – JUST DRAG & DROP
When we have a set of data in one column & we want it to move to another column. What do we do? Select them all, copy or Hit CTRL C and select the destination column, and paste or hit CTRL V?
Forget the hassle, now select the required data, just Drag & drop to the destination.
Tip Number 3: COPY MULTIPLE VALUES USING THE CLIPBOARD
Working with multiple values? Forget the hassle of copying and pasting one by one.
Use the built in Clipboard feature of Excel.
You can expand the clipboard from the icon lists or use the Win (Windows Key) + V to click on the required values
Tip Number 4: DUPLICATE A SHEET IN JUST ONE-CLICK
Want to copy the whole sheet? Are you selecting and copy pasting?
Or right click, copy, select the sheet, move to bottom?? So many steps for duplicating the sheet?
Now Duplicate a Sheet like a Pro!
Just hold down Ctrl + Drag & Drop the sheet to desired position.
Tip Number 5: UNDO & REDO IN ONE HIT
Undo & Redo would be the most used operations in Excel.
Now do undo and redo with just one click.
Use the buttons on top.
Tip Number 6 Use the QUICK ACCESS TOOLBAR
Tedious to find the operations that you frequently use?
CHANGE ALL CAPS TO Mixed Case for Next 3 Rows.
CLICK THE DROP DOWN ARROW TO SEE THE OPTIONS
YOU CAN ADD THE FREQUENTLY USED OPTION TO QUICK ACCESS TOOLBAR
EXTRA TIP: YOU CAN ADD ANY OTHER COMMANDS THAT YOU USE FREQUENTLY
Hope that helps! Want to learn more exciting tips, tricks & shortcuts and improve your productivity in Microsoft Excel?
If you wish to build your knowledge to have a better Excel Operations knowledge, you must start working on it. You will do well in your career, and get ahead faster, even land that dream job with better skills & competence in Excel.
We at Intellisoft are here to guide you.
Intellisoft Systems offers 2 day extensive workshops on Microsoft Excel.
In today’s world of information consumption, we are surrounded by media, and its never been more important than now to grab your audience’s attention with high quality content.
Social media channels have made it easy for brands to increase customer engagement not just through text, but through photos, videos & info graphics.
Visual media are increasingly being used by marketers keen to connect with customers – and to have their messages amplified with likes, comments and shares. More products are moving to Instagram than ever.
Too many companies opt for a blanket coverage approach to social media. They share the same posts in the same way to all the channels, and then they question why their followers aren’t engaging with their account.
There isn’t a one fit solution to social media: each network has its own character and audience. To get the most out of social media channels, you need to create strong content – and then use it to start a conversation that is appropriate to that network.
One such trending social media is Instagram. It is a Photo Sharing medium which has entirely changed the way we interact with images and with the brands that post them. It currently has 130+ Million users, using the app every day.
Because of the Instagram’s instant, on-the-go appeal, companies are using it to humanize their brands, with plenty of behind-the-scenes and more informal content, as well as encouraging user-generated content with great success.
Here are some quick tips for engaging on Instagram:
Build a community by putting your official hashtag in your banner heading for fans to know how to tag you.
Show the human side of your brand by mixing behind-the-scenes shots with customer, employee, and producer photos and videos.
Design and lifestyle are the big part of Instagram, so think how your product works in people lives.
Use filters creatively
You can find out more about your Instagram activity through their built-in statistics, so use them to inform your content as your profile evolves.
Don’t be “Salsey” or use blatant product placement. Users of Instagram are media savvy, and they don’t appreciate the community being used as a commercial.
Brands that are popular on Instagram are original and artistic, and they blend the use of Instagram into community building.
Post regularly & use the platform to show your take on current events, holidays & seasons.
Use specific hashtags for promotions. Don’t use too many. Keep it simple.
Blend Instagram with your website for more interactive experience. Instead of simple product pictures you can ask customers to upload their photos and experiences.
Intellisoft Offers you an Ultimate 2 Days Digital Marketing Workshop to improve the current Digital marketing activities & get you to leverage on existing content, new content generation, and ideas to maximize ROI from the Social Media Marketing.
Register Online now to get the most out of Digital Platforms.
Free Tips, Tutorials & Training Grants Info
Learn from expert tips, tricks and resources for Excel, PowerPoint, Photoshop, Python, Power BI, Project Management, IT, Soft Skills & more with our Email Newsletter. Plus get the latest news on Grants. Join Today!
