Final Exam: Excel Course Assessment

When reflecting upon a course following a semester, the prevailing sentiment is typically one of relief. Sure, there is often a strong sense of achievement, but the dominant feeling is a sense of liberation. Not so with Excel for Business.

School is not typically a place where one has the opportunity to learn vast amounts of thoroughly useful information. Yet every Monday and Wednesday, from 1:30-2:45, I would look forward to the opportunity to ascend the 11 stories to the Belfer Hall computer labs, to engage in a fun-filled, interactive, challenging, and rewarding exploration of Microsoft Excel 2007. This journey revealed with clarity what had previously been just an uninformed impression; Excel is from the most powerful and useful tools available to all businesspeople and household managers alike.

I enjoyed the class assignments and projects, largely because of the delightful manner in which Professor Jorisch leads the class. His inexhaustible patience, amiable disposition, and perceptible compassion all work in conjunction with his extraordinary ability to explain complicated instructions and concepts in an easily understandable way. While I’m sure that the textbook served as a helpful anchor in driving through the material, I have no doubt that it was the innate talent and deft methodology employed by Professor Jorisch that made this class so rewarding.

Beyond the class work, I feel that I gained very much from the Casegrader homework assignments. Included in the skills acquired were: applying formulas to compute totals, linking different worksheets to one another to arrive at the desired figures, using Excel formatting options to make information stand out, using the IF function, working with charts and graphics, freezing rows and columns, creating tables, filtering data, sorting table data, working with several different files and linking them all together, using the VLOOKUP function, and creating Macros.

There were other skills acquired, in a couple of the group projects, and especially in my preparation for the final. I think that while this course demanded a strong and committed work ethic, the productive and agreeable nature of the class made living up to that commitment easy, even fun. Overall, I look back on this course as having been an uncommonly enjoyable and valuable experience. Thanks Professor!!

Case 8 - The Grand Finale

What a fantastic way to close out a semester of Casegrader! Case 8 was excellent, because it dealt with great, very relevant tools, but was pretty easy to follow and complete. The only difficulty that I had was in creating the button for the macro, but that was because I did not have the Developer tab displaying on my ribbon. Once the Professor informed me that I should have a Developer tab, I added it in Excel Options, and had no problem completing the assignment.

Creating and using macros makes me feel like a programmer. It's nice to be able to set up a virtual program that instructs Excel to perform certain functions at the push of a button. I'm glad to have obtained these skills.

Case 7

Wow. Quite a case. Contrary to what may have been expected, my trouble didn't come from Step 2. I had no problem naming the table. My difficulty was with the VLOOKUP function, as well as some of the subsequent steps. Thanks to Evan Levian for helping me get through some of those steps.
While this was a good, tough assignment, unlike the previous cases, I'm not sure how much of it I feel prepared to take with me for further use. The hints were helpful, but also necessary and un-explanatory. I don't think that I would have been able to do the Case without them, nor do I feel that I can easily apply these commands to a different Case.

All in all, though, a solid case.

Case 6 - Ahead of Schedule

Knowing that I would likely be busy in the coming week, I decided to get a head-start on Case 6. I hit a snag at Step 14, not knowing how to place two workbooks in a tiled layout. Honestly, without the help of the professor, I'm not sure how I would have figured it out. It's not in the Page Layout tab, which was my first choice. The help function provided not a clue. I hope the rest of the class figures it out more easily.
Overall, this was a good, somewhat complicated assignment, because it involved working with several different files, and linking them all together. Nice skills to be able to use.

Case 5 - Somebody call Thomson

I wasn't able to properly enjoy Case 5. Though it was a stimulating exercise, the experience was dampened by some publishing errors in the Casegrader text. I followed the instructions - froze rows and columns, created tables, filtered data, sorted table data - all the while quite confident that I was doing so properly. But the sample worksheets that the book offers as representative of the worksheet's desired appearance contained errors; the data (totals, subtotals, etc.) was inaccurate. As such, I had to hold my breath as Casegrader graded my file. Seeing 100/100 confirmed that the error was on the Casegrader side of the fence. Shame, though. I didn't really have the mind frame to enjoy PivotTables. Somebody should call Thomson.

Case 4

Working with charts and graphics. What a fantastic assignment. It was different from what we have been doing until now, in that there wasn't any usage of formulas or functions. It was exclusively working with charts and graphics. Ironically, though formatting and chart selection is typically the easier part of our assignment, this Case was more difficult than any of its predecessors. The difficulty came as a result of the less informative instructions. They told us what to do, but never how to do it. We therefore were forced to really explore Excel to locate the required tool. Though I did complete the assignment without error, I think I may have performed two of the steps in a manner other than that which was intended.

In Step 9, it instructs us to use the Format Chart Area Dialogue box to change the 3D rotation. I couldn't locate any such dialogue box on the ribbon, so I right-clicked on it and found the necessary settings (was right-clicking the intended way?). Further, in Step 15, I couldn't find the Axis Options on the ribbon, so I right-clicked and got to it that way. Any thoughts?

Case 3

Boy, Case 3 was a blast!!
Seriously, though, I really liked it. I felt it was the first case in which there were moments that I had to focus intently to follow the instructions propperly. Evidently, I didn't start focusing intently until I reached step #5, as I neglected to use the TODAY function to insert the date, and I accidently included too many columns in step #4 computation. No matter, as soon as I saw the grade summary, I quickly resubmitted the corrected file.

Note: I particularly liked using the IF function.

Beanbag Review

The project was entitled 'Beanbag Company Quarterly Income Statement.' My project partner was Benjy Sammet. It was a pleasure working with him. Together, we used Excel to analyze at which point(s) a manufacturing business "breaks even." That is to say, at which point the income and expenses reach the necessary level and proportion to produce a profit. As expected, the exercise helped us to become more in tune with the specifics of creating effective and useful worksheets, through the use of data tables. I look forward to more group tasks in the future.

Case 2

This was a cute little assignment. I don't know if it was more difficult than the first case, or simply a bit longer. Somehow, perhaps due to the increased length of the assignment, I managed to omit one cell styling instruction on my first submission. I fixed it up and resubmitted the error-free workbook.

I think this was just a good exercise in using Excel formatting options to make information stand out. It seems the manager wanted to emphasize the results and achievements of his team, individually and collectively, and used colorful formatting to do so. I especially liked the "Top Ten/Bottom Ten" aspect, though if this were intended to be a serious financial presentation, I think that some of the coloration was a bit over the top.

Case 1

The much-anticipated first assignment from Casegrader was simply too much fun for words!

Seriously, though, it seems that this book is going to be an excellent way to learn excel and all of its wonders.

I enjoyed the methodical, understandable, yet mildly challenging approach used in case 1. We applied basic formulas to compute totals and linked the different worksheets to one another to arrive at the desired figures.

It was a modest, simple beginning. A great way to start!

Exercise on Financial Functions

As is becoming clear, Excel is a powerful tool with far-reaching capabilities. The financial functions appear to be useful not only for business professionals, but for individuals trying to calculate and consider their personal financial situation and options.

A few particularly useful functions are:

1) Figuring out how long it would take to pay off a by using the NPER function. In this case, we used it to calculate the number of payments using regular, identical payment amounts and an unchanging interest rate.

2) Figuring out how much you need to save each month in order to be able to afford future expenses or luxuries by using the PMT function.

3) It also is important to be able to figure out how much savings will amount to, using the FV Function.

Excel Shortcut and Function Keys

I am a big fan of shortcuts. I'v always been a crtl+v/crtl+x guy, a alt + shift + tab guy, a shift f7 guy...

In the list provided, a few shortcuts and functions struck me as being particularly useful. I found CTRL+; to be a nice shortcut to quickly enter the date. I also think its helpful to use CTRL+` to see what formulas are being used where, and then to switch back to cell values. Some tasks could probably be facilitated through the use of the SHIFT+F4 tool to repeats the last Find action. I also frequently use the CRTL + z shortcut to undo the previous step.

Of course, CRTL + S is critical to use in periodically saving one's work to avoid losing important data.

As for the functions, I like using f7 to check spelling, and f11 to create a chart of the information in range.

Of all the additional shortcuts, I felt the most interesting ones were ALT+ENTER to start a new line in the same cell, CTRL+ENTER to fill the selected cell range with the current entry, and SHIFT+ENTER to complete a cell entry and select the cell above it.

Getting Up to Speed on Excel 2007

Overall, I found the online tutorial to be helpful. While a lot has clearly changed in the new interface, a lot has also remained the same. The main difference in the new version appears to be on the ribbion, with a tabs-groups-commands system now in place.

I think I like it.

My Comments: My online review on creating formulas.

Much to my surprise, I actually enjoyed this short review on basic excel, focused on using cell references and simplifying formulas by using functions. There wasn't much that I hadn't seen before, but the point about absolute cell references with dollar signs ($) was new for me. In addition, I enjoyed the new interface of Excel 2007.

First Post

My name is Joshua Sladowsky.
My email address is jsladows@yu.edu
I am currently enrolled as a Junior in the Sy Syms School of Business.
I am majoring in Finance.
The class journal is at http://e4b.blogspot.com