Reporting tools and techniques in Excel

[IronShaikh]

Hi guys,


I'm posting this here as its' very general and not a targeted at a specific functionality of excel.


Im starting a very junior level job that requires me to be working with Excel and reporting key perofrmance indicators of a project. I know i'll be attenting two meetings a week to get/report back the KPI's of the project and i want to be prepared and Impress my employers.


Currently I know how to use Pivot tables, would you recommend any other impressive techniques or tools to use to not only effectively create stellar sheets for reporting, but also impress my boss?


If you don't have the time to tell me how to do the action, at least drop the name of it (and perhaps a knowledgable link) so i can look up and learn how to do it. Im really fresh to the working environment, straight out of college and i want to hit the ground running.



I'm basic with excel too, though hopefully this job will have me becoming a whizz at carrying out my business processes. and I know this forum will help with that.


Thanks guys, so glad this forum exists! count me in as your newest active member/contributor

 

[bstory84]

I work for a very large appliance retailer. I handle large amount of Customer data tracking as well as nation wide inventory levels. alot of data mining with SQL /QMF. and alot of workbooks that are considered performance tracking such as KPI's.

My most used functions in excel are as follows.
Vlookup, SUMIF, AVERAGE, SUMPRODUCT, IF, and 3D referencing.

Pivot tables are great for the end result of your data, and for some reason i have found that the higher ups tend to like PIE charts alot. I have never been much of a fan though.

so if you don't already no these funcitions inside and out. I would get really familiar with them.

Can't hurt to learn some VBA also.

 

[IronShaikh]

Excellent!

Vlookup was recommended by another coworker too. Will look all of these up today.

 

[Derek Brown]

If you have any difficulty with VLOOKUPs, have a look at:
http://www.mrexcel.com/vlawsomequick.html