In the Excel Fundamentals Boot Camp you’ll learn all the core skills for the Excel analyst, beginning with a refresher on Excel formulas and functions (including the powerful VLOOKUP), and then moving into PivotTables, data visualizations, and using Power Query to gather, clean, and transform your data.
In the Fundamentals Boot Camp, you will begin with a review core skills for the Excel analyst. This section is geared to teach critical skills to less experienced users and review those skills for intermediate users. We’ll start with basic formulas, reviewing absolute and relative referencing, and move into a review of Math, Logic, Text and Date functions. From there, we’ll look at how data SHOULD be structured in Excel for advanced analytics, then dive deep into Excel’s most feared function: VLOOKUP. (Yes, we are very aware that XLOOKUP exists today, but trust us – if you can master VLOOKUP, you can master ANY Excel formula!) Finally, we will cap the section off by exploring some core data visualization theory, and how to apply them to Charts and conditional formats.
Armed with the skills learned early on in this course, we will be ready to unlock one of Excel’s most powerful tools: the PivotTable. We will look at how to create them, update them, and control the variety of features to show our results the way we need to see them. From grouping to controlling aggregations to slicing and dicing, you’ll acquire the skills to summarize data sets of all sizes in seconds. You’ll also learn how the data flows through a PivotTable, and its impact on security.
After learning how to quickly summarize our data, we then need to turn our focus back to Data’s dirty little secret: that it’s rarely in a good shape that is ready to use. It’s dirty, misshapen, and spread across multiple files. It’s in text files, Excel files, and databases. It’s pivoted, transposed, and full of irrelevant records. Wouldn’t it be awesome if there was a built-in tool that allowed you to deal with all of those issues? Wouldn’t it be even more amazing if it recorded the data cleanup steps you wrote so that you could update it with a single click when the data changes? There is. It’s called Power Query. It’s built-in to Excel 2016 and higher and happens to be the focus of the next part of our workshop.
In addition to PivotTables, our boot camp will teach you how to access Power Query, how the tool works and the impact that it will have on your life. You’ll start by exploring how to append (stack) data sets in the same file, then expand this to appending data from multiple files into a single data set for analysis. We’ll cap this day by appending an entire folder full of files all at once… pure magic at work!
Lastly we will continue Power Query skill development. This section will show you 9 different ways to merge tables together, no matter where they come from. We’ll look at reshaping tabular data, pivoting and unpivoting it as needed. We will group data with ease, add conditional logic and even use the built-in toolset to build formulas by simply typing out the result we want, rather than the logic.
This training is targeted at users who:
Have experience with and/or routinely perform manual data cleanup in order to get data ready for analysis.
Basic skills with IF() statements, PivotTables and Power Query are assets, but not required.
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This course is a hybrid format of pre-recorded video training interspersed with live online Q&A and coaching with Ken Puls, for direct help with your questions. The Boot Camp is broken down into two main sections:
The main course curriculum includes 13 hours of training, delivered in a mixture of pre-recorded video training and hands-on practice over an 8-week semester with a weekly time commitment of approximately 2.5 hours per week.
In addition to the main course curriculum, this course also includes access to monthly “Ask Ken Anything” (AKA) sessions. Each of these optional sessions is up to 2 hours in length, conducted live, and you may continue to join the calls even after your original semester has been completed. This is a great way to receive continued coaching on a longer-term basis, as you apply your skills in the real world and run into real world problems.
We understand that sometimes work can get in the way of the ability to attend live sessions. For this reason, questions for the AKA sessions may be submitted in advance, and all of the live calls will be recorded and shared with participants. Thus, you will still be able to learn from the discussions even if you are not able to join Ken live (due to time zone conflicts, other commitments, etc.) or get called away for part of the session. This also allows you to watch the recordings on your own schedule, and to pause, rewind, and practice more with example files.
In addition, since your purchase (or renewal) provides access to the course for an entire year (from the start date of your initial semester), you are able to join any later semester as long as your subscription is active! That’s right – in the case that life knocks you offline, the next semester is open for you to either restart or pick up where you left off.
As with all of our training courses, we also provide access to our curated Skillwave Support Forum as well, allowing you to get answers on a quicker basis should you need more immediate help.
The core of this course contains 29 hours of training, based on:
If registrants attend (or watch the recordings of) all 22 hours of the AKA sessions, this course includes up to 40 hours of training in total.
Registration is ongoing with new intakes beginning each month. Upon joining the course, attendees will be invited to join a “Kick-off” calls where Ken will walk through the details on how the program works. These calls are generally hosted on the 2nd Wednesday of each month from 9:00 AM – 9:30 AM Pacific Time and 4:00 PM – 4:30 PM Pacific Time. Attendees are encouraged to join the call that makes the most sense for their time zone.
With the exception of December, Ken hosts 2 “Ask Ken Anything” sessions per month – generally on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of each month, resulting in approximately 23 AKA calls held each year. Call times alternate between morning and afternoon (Pacific Time), in order to allow students from different time zones the opportunity to join the sessions in person. All AKA calls are recorded, and students are able to submit questions in advance.
Also, you may join any of the AKA sessions for as long as you are subscribed to the course, even those after your initial enrollment semester ends.
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First release of the course.
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The original format of weekly 30-minute Q&A calls + monthly ‘Ask Ken Anything’ (AKA) calls replaced with twice-monthly AKA calls that are 2-hours each. This is to better accommodate new semesters kicking off each month instead of each quarter.
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The videos are streamed on-demand and may be watched as often as you like. However, they are not downloadable. The example files and handouts for each lesson are downloadable.
No, you can begin watching the videos and using the example files as soon as you are registered. You do not have to wait for the kick-off call. Additionally, your subscription will be extended to one year from the semester start date, not the date of purchase.
All the videos for the course are hosted on Vimeo. Please note that some networks block access to Vimeo, in which case the videos will not be watchable. You may want to double-check that your network allows access to Vimeo before registering in the Academy, to ensure that you will be able to see the videos.
All users with a current course subscription receive access to our private Discussion Forum, where they can ask questions related to the course materials, as well as how to apply those teachings to their own work. This forum is also intended to act as a place for students to practice their own learnings by helping others with those questions. While the focus of this forum is primarily aimed at allowing students to learn by helping each other, they are monitored by our course authors as well. For technical issues related to the site, course access, or other questions regarding your account, please get in touch through our Contact Us page.
We recommend you may submit your questions (and upload any support files) at least 24 hours before the AMA via the AMA Submissions lesson. If you are not able to join the AMA session live, you can still submit your question and watch the session recording later.
The Q&A sessions will not be recorded, but the AMA session will be recorded. After the AMA session, the recording will be uploaded to the AMA Recordings lesson so you can watch them whenever you like.
Yes, if you have a group of 15 or more people registered in the course, we are happy to offer one private AMA session in addition to the regular AMA sessions open to all students. This will allow the instructor to help you directly with questions on your organization's data, instead of having to provide a cleansed sample data set that is safe to be viewed by others.
After all the modules and lessons have been completed, you will be able to download the Certificate of Completion from the My Courses area of your Account Dashboard.
If you subscription is set to auto-renew, our system will automatically renew your subscription for another year on your renewal date using the billing information on file. If you subscription is set to manual renewal, our system will generate a manual invoice and email it to you on the renewal date. About a month (4 weeks) before your next renewal date, you will receive an email from us reminding you that the renewal is coming up and to confirm your billing details so your access is uninterrupted.
You may cancel your subscription at any time, and you will continue to have access to all of your course materials until your expiry date. To cancel your subscription, go to the Billing page from your Account Dashboard and select the subscription to cancel from the My Subscriptions area. Once in the Subscription Details page, you can then choose to cancel your subscription from the Actions field. After your subscription expires, you will not longer have access to the course materials, including the downloadable Recipe Cards.
We accept credit card payments through our secure online payment portal, Stripe. If you would like to discuss other payment options, please get in touch through our Contact Us page. All transactions are charged in US Dollars. Please note that because Skillwave is registered in Canada, we are required by Canada Revenue Agency to collect the 5% Goods & Services Tax (GST) on registrations made by Canadians.
We think you will love our training; however, if you are unsatisfied with the training for any reason, we offer a 14-day 100% money-back guarantee, as long as you have completed less than 25% of the course. All we ask in return is that you tell us why you were unsatisfied with the training. We do not offer refunds if you have completed over 25% of the course and/or it is more than 14 days after the purchase date.
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