Excel Olympics Masterclasses
The best of Excel in-depth full-day sessions
Budgeting, forecasting and what-if? analysis for Excel
How often have you looked back and wished you knew then what you know now? How do you compare what actually happened with what you thought would happen?
Become more than a “number cruncher” and add value to your organisation through your strategic / commercial recommendations.
This practical course provides you with the analysis that can be built into forecasting and budgeting. Using simple statistical tools and techniques, attendees will learn a pragmatic approach to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of their forecasting.
This masterclass will show participants which forecasting technique to use when, where and why to turn historical data into future management information ready for what-if, variance and breakeven analysis.
Benefits:
Aimed at anyone involved in the budgeting and forecasting process, this course shows you how to reduce the risks in your decision-making and recommendations by using budgets, qualitative and quantitative analysis, by utilising our kit bag of tips, tools and techniques. This masterclass will:
- provide a practical understanding of data forecasting and budgeting, including what to use when and why
- quantify the risks and rewards of estimating future assumptions
- explore different forecasting and trending methods
- teach you several ways to analyse and undertake what-if analysis, including breakeven, variance, sensitivity and scenario analyses.
Liam has over 30 years’ experience in financial model development / auditing, valuations, M&A, strategy, training and consultancy.
Liam has headed Ernst & Young’s modelling team in Melbourne and was a Director in their strategic valuations team in London. He was also a senior member of the UK Post Office’s M&A and strategy teams.
He has worked in the UK, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, United States and Vietnam, with many internationally recognised clients, constructing and reviewing strategic, operational and valuation models for many high-profile IPOs, LBOs and strategic assignments.
Liam has been recognised eight times as a Most Valuable Professional (MVP) in Excel by Microsoft, one of only 84 appointed worldwide, and specialises in financial modelling.
Master Your Excel Data
Back by popular demand – you liked this course last year so much that we had to extend our masterclass capacity so we decided to do a re-run this year.
The sad reality is that not all data is stored in nicely curated databases. Instead we have to piece together data provided in text files, Excel files, web pages and even the body of emails to build the business intelligence solutions we need. That stops today.
In this course, you’ll learn how Power Query can clean up, reshape and combine your data with ease – no matter where it comes from.
If you need to learn one skill in Excel today, how to work with Power Query is it. Not only will it change the way you “Get & Transform” data in Excel, but it’s also the system used to collect data for Power BI desktop, meaning these skills are transferable to other programs.
Benefits:
- Build custom data import automations
- Connect Excel to variaty of data sources
- Learn how to clean and manipulate data easily with a few clicks
Ken Puls, FCPA, FCMA, is a Chartered Professional Accountant, blogger, author and trainer with over 20 years of business and financial modelling experience. His passion lies in exploring tools to turn data into information, and teaching others how to benefit from them.
Ken has held the Microsoft MVP distinction since 2006 in both the Excel and Data Platform categories. He is also one of about 4% of CPA’s to be recognized as a Fellow of his accounting body.
Impress with Interactive Excel Dashboards
In this hands-on session we create an impressive, interactive KPI (Key performance Indicator) Dashboard from scratch.
We use Excel’s core functionality together with form controls to add interactivity to our report.
There is NO VBA, NO Power Query, just smart use of formulas and neat Excel tricks.
Prerequisites: Comfortable with writing basic Excel formulas (e.g. SUMIF, VLOOKUP, IF)
Benefits:
You don’t just learn how to create the KPI dashboard, you also learn:
- The process you should follow for a successful Excel dashboard Project.
- Advanced formulas that will come in handy if you ever do complex analysis in Excel.
- Smart use of Excel’s core functionality to get impressive results.
- Form controls without VBA to add impressive interactivity to any of your reports.
Leila Gharani is an Microsoft Excel MVP and instructor specializing in dashboards and visualization techniques.
She is a Microsoft Certified Excel Expert and has over 15 years of experience implementing and training users on Management Information Systems of different sizes and nature.
Demystifying DAX
DAX is the data modelling language of Power BI and Power Pivot for Excel. It is reasonably easy to get started with DAX, however sooner or later most people hit a wall where they get stuck and can’t move forward. Have you ever typed a DAX formula, pressed enter and then crossed your fingers hoping you will get the right answer? If this sounds like you, then chances are there are some deeper concepts that you don’t fully understand, and these gaps are stopping you from moving forward.
In this full day master class session, Matt Allington (Author of the books Supercharge Excel and Supercharge Power BI) will clearly explain how the DAX language really works under the hood. At the end of the session you will fully understand filter propagation, initial filter context and evaluation contexts. The session will use real world examples to explain the concepts. This is not a beginner’s course – you should already know the basics of DAX before attending.
Benefits:
- Learn the core language of PowerPivot
- Optimize your PowerPivot data models
- Maximize your calculation speeds by using DAX best practices
Matt Allington is a career expert in BI and has 30+ years’ experience in using data to deliver business value. Matt is a Microsoft MVP that specialises in Power BI, Power Pivot for Excel and Power Query. He brings his business and IT experience to the table to get fast and effective results through training, consulting and general business data problem solving. Matt is the author of the book “Supercharge Power BI – Power BI is Better When You Learn to Write DAX”.