About ten years ago, I got my first real taste of “coding” during an automation project where I had to use Excel VBA (although I heavily abused the Macro Recorder tool).
I thought I’d share the major concepts with you to help you be great the fast way.
Here are the most important tools to understand, from most common to least common:
- Insert > List (sort and filter)
- Vlookup function (and its less popular twin, Hlookup)
- Absolute references ($)
- If function: create logical and conditional expressions
- Formatting: colors, borders, conditional formatting, alignment, wrap, merge
- Sumifs: create conditional formulas
- Insert > Table > Recommended Charts (the fastest way to visualize data)
- Pivot Tables: See data from multiple dimensions including sum, count, and average
- Macro Recorder: record your actions instead of writing code
- Visual Basic Editor (VBE): write code
