What  is  Advanced  Excel

Becoming an advanced excel user

To become an Advanced user in Excel, you need to have good knowledge of all the below aspects & more.

It looks impressive when Advanced Excel users know how to structure & present their data. Good understanding of Excel features like tables, cell styles, formatting options is necessary to make awesome Excel workbooks.

Excel is just a data keeping tool. By using Formulas for Excel it make Excel smart. But by using formulas, you can crunch data, analyze it and get answers to most complex questions. While anyone can use a simple SUM or IF formula, an advanced user of it would be able to seamlessly write & combine formulas like SUMPRODUCT, MATCH, INDEX, SUMIFS, LOOKUP formulas. Apart from knowing the formulas, advanced Excel users know how to debug them, audit them and how to use which formula for which occasion.

Advanced  functions

In Excel Functions are easy to create and design, they simplify and automate tasks that would otherwise be much more labor intensive. They said, there are a number of functions, in practice, require some skill in order to solve the complex problems. If you knowing the functions, Part of the challenge is when and how you can apply these and how to design them for your specific purpose.  If this is a specific area you would like to work on, you can take 

Logical functions:

IF

OR and AND

Data Functions:

VLookup

HLookup

Text Functions

Concatenate

Mid

This is not a comprehensive list by any means.  However, exploring these functions and applying them to problems will give you a better understanding of how to use functions at an advanced level in Excel.

Macros and VBA

A basic understanding of macros in Excel will help any user complete tasks much more efficiently. While in many cases, an employer might not specifically prefer or require this skill, using macros can help you finish those tight turn around reports without making mistakes or pulling all-nighters.

Learning VBA thoroughly will give you complete control over your macros so you can customize them to do complex tasks, even ones involving in multiple programs.  In cases where VBA is a job expectation, it will likely be stated directly.  However, if you are working on a team that relies on spreadsheets regularly, your knowledge of VBA could allow you to create some enhancements and quickly show your value.

Array Functions

In getting acquainted with Excel, to get a single cell output a value you will have to use most of the functions. That to work on an entire range there is another set of advanced functions. One of the most commonly used is the Transpose function, which essentially allows you to switch the axes for your data, so that the rows become the columns, and vice versa.

Data sorting and entry

To use Excel at an advanced level, Understanding functions is critical but it is not the only capability you will want to develop. Another area that may be important in working with spreadsheets day-to-day has to do with organizing and preparing data and cells within your tables. This involves several features of Excel. Here are some of the most common ones:

Applying data validation

Creating drop-down selections

Custom filtering

Protecting sheets and locking cells

Statistical Analysis

If you will be working with statistics in Excel, there are specialized tools designed to help you crunch the numbers.  And since they will save you a lot of time vs. manual calculations, you will likely be expected to know the ones that are applicable to your work.  While some of these items are built in to Excel’s functions, most are available as features of the add-in analysis toolpak.  Make sure you have that resource installed and get to know some of the functions within it.

Dashboards

Creating a report with data visualization (e.g. graphs and charts) is a capability you learn at a basic level in an introductory Excel course.  However, the tools you have to work with for this purpose are vigorous and deserve special attention if you will be producing company reports.

The Excel features covered here should give you a feel for what an advanced user can do with the program. However, there is still much more. To name a few, you might want to understand pivot tables, financial modeling functions, and/or referencing data between sheets and workbooks. Consider how comfortable you are with all of these features and try out some of the mentioned resources for getting to know the ones that will take your skills to the next level.

Advanced File Tasks

Managing Tables in Microsoft Excel

Data Tools in Excel

Doing More with Charts in Excel

Sparklines

Working with Functions and Formulas

Advanced Conditional Formatting

Introduction to User Defined Functions Using VBA

Using Form Controls and Templates

Advanced Lookup Functions

Advanced Functions in Excel

Advanced Pivot Table Tools