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Changes You Will See When Opening Excel on Monday!

Welcome back!  I hope you all had a great summer!  While you were gone all of the campus computer labs were upgraded to Office 2013.  While you heard some complaints from me last semester regarding the look of the interface, I've been researching some of the improvements and have found a few that you should immediately find useful.

1.  Flash fill - this is too cool to even try to explain.  You will be introduced to this feature on the first day of class!

2.  Some may find this annoying but in the long run I think you'll like it.  Whenever you select an area of data you will now see what's called a "quick analysis" box (similar to the auto-fill box you would see after auto-filling an area).  Clicking on this box gives you options to do the following to the data: apply conditional formatting, create a chart, create a pivot table, use totals functions (or any of the other financial functions), and use sparklines.  We will be learning about both pivot tables and sparklines later in the semester but this box will save some time in getting to the correct ribbon.

Attached is a link to a really good article about the improvements.

http://chandoo.org/wp/2013/04/03/best-new-features-in-excel-2013/

Testimonials

Here are full or portions of messages I've received from past students relaying the type of work they are doing in the field and noting how having Excel skills were crucial to their success!

Ms. Shifflett,

I am so thankful for the excel class that I took with you.  I am working as a financial advisor now and I love making spreadsheets for clients to make their life and my job a bit simpler.

Ms. Shifflett,

I wanted to send you a quick thank you.  This summer I've been interning with CMC Howell Metal's accounting department in New Market, Virginia.  I would say that 95% of the work I do involves an Excel file.  Your ACTG 303/304 courses have helped me tremendously.  I went into your class knowing very little about excel and what I learned helped me secure my current job and it has definitely helped me excel (no pun intended) in my position.

I hope your course will remain a part of accounting curriculum, as I know many people will benefit from taking it.
  
 

Professor Shifflett,

 

Just wanted to say that your excel classes were more help for my internship than anything else I studied!

 

Mrs. Shifflett,

I am doing an internship that's more finance/marketing based.

I just finished working on an excel document with 55,893 rows of data, using a pivot table no less. Knowing excel in and out thanks to your class has really helped me get through this!

 

Professor Shifflet,
I wanted to reach out to you and extend my gratitude for the skills you taught me in ACTG 303 and 304. The Excel skills you instilled in us have already proved invaluable for me and I am only 2 weeks into my new job. I work at a software company in the finance department and my talents have already been sought by multiple co-workers looing for a solution to their problems. The CFO has already been told of my knowledge of the program and I have been given increasingly difficult projects. Many of my friends who have also received excel training at their schools have never even heard of VLOOKUP, SUMIF, Conditional formatting or anything of the sort. They touched upon the most basic skills and breezed through and thus find themselves totally unprepared for real world experience. Thank you very much for your excellent instruction in these courses that has provided me with the ability to distinguish myself from other co-workers after only 2 weeks.

 

 

Hi Professor Shifflett,

 

I hope your summer has been going really well. I’m interning with KPMG this summer and just wanted to thank you for the skills you taught us in ACTG 303 and 304. Yesterday I was given an Excel spreadsheet with 9,000 rows! Although it seemed intimidating at first, I used pivot tables and sorting to effectively organize the data and present it professionally. The associate I was working with was very impressed and glad I knew how to use these features because she wasn't as familiar with them. I work with Excel every single day, so I’m very fortunate that you prepared us to use it efficiently.

 

Mrs. Shifflett,

 

Hope all is well! The other day marked six months at KPMG and I was just reflecting on my first half-year.

Just wanted to let you know – having an Excel background was absolutely CRUCIAL to every engagement I’ve had thus far. Seriously, it is probably the most useful class I’ve had to prepare me for work. It seems like every single first-year works heavily with excel, so I don’t think this was something unique to me. I’m so grateful JMU had the classes and I was able to remember a great deal of it all. Particularly….being able to manipulate pivots and vlookups and just being able to effectively filter and sort data is something I do every day. And just being able to use shortcuts / hot keys very quickly has been great too. I rarely even use a mouse anymore; pretty much just use the alt and control functions to get around via keyboard.

So, thanks again! I am probably going to get certified this summer. I love excel, it’s an awesome program.

Hi Professor Shifflett:

I hope this email finds you well. I just wanted to let you know that more so than any class I took at JMU, as far as internship-applicability goes, ACTG 303/304 helped me the most. Your lessons really stuck with me, and I was more "excel-savvy" than many of my fellow interns, and even some of the staff. Many people expressed that they were impressed by my excel skills, and I wanted to email you every time! I was offered a full-time job with the firm, and I believe that your class/effective teaching methods helped me get there. Just wanted to send a big thanks your way :)