Excel and Data Analytics Basics Event Creates Efficiencies for LVAIC Community

June 11, 2020, @ 11:02 AM

While moving to online working environments, LVAIC continues to host programs and conferences that further enhance the skills of faculty and staff. One such event took place on Wednesday, June 3 through a virtual session around Excel and Data Analytics. This program served as part of the LVAIC Business Process Learning Series.

Participants in this program, which was postponed from its original March date, were given the opportunity to work with an LVAIC-provided data set and follow through a step-by-step guided instruction regarding setting up data, scrubbing data, and creating and utilizing pivot tables within Microsoft Excel. Led by Zane Kratzer, Manager of Strategic Analytics at Lehigh University, attendees were provided with the sample data in advance of the event to begin practicing.

Kratzer began the session by explaining how to access this data set and offered objectives for what attendees should learn by the conclusion of the program. Sharing his screen, participants could easily follow along through each step in scrubbing the data for mistakes and duplication. From there, Kratzer offered a simple, clear explanation of creating pivot tables to analyze the data, gather facts and information, and draw conclusions from what would otherwise be a meaningless set of data points. In creating the pivot table function, Kratzer offered explanations for reasons to create pivot tables, followed by a demonstration of how setting up different types of tables produces different information.

As participants watched the demonstration, they had the chance to send in questions throughout the presentation to be answered in the moment as well as displayed for the entire audience. This led to discussion for additional sessions for this type of program in the future, as well as offered attendees a chance to learn numerous simple tricks within the program that will save the LVAIC community enormous amounts of time resources.

The full recording of the presentation and the questions and answers session is available on the LVAIC website for previewing. Future sessions regarding data analytics and Microsoft Excel literacy will continue to be designed and delivered for the LVAIC community in the future. Continue to stay informed of future LVAIC programs by joining the LVAIC newsletter mailing list today.

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