06
February
2017

Commission Calculations using Excel Iterative Calculations

Training to advanced level is the vital first step in mastering your Excel analysis and reporting. But it is the next step: applying what you've learnt to your industry-specific spreadsheets, that makes the difference. 

We are planning a series of blogs and courses that will help people learn to apply advanced functions and do the kind of analysis most people need at some point. Some of the material may include VBA code. But often, if maths is not your strong point, you need to figure out more simple calculations like gross profit and margins etc.

 

 Corné van Heerden, one of our specialist  Excel trainers, has put together a useful  article on calculating commissions based  on GP that may just be what you're  looking for.

Corné is a developer and business analyst, who trains for us in customised super-advanced Excel, VBA programming, BI, PowerPivot etc. 

05
June
2016

The most valuable Excel advice

Corné van Heerden, the recently-crowned Microsoft Excel champ of South Africa 2016, has kindly written a guest blog for us. Corné trains specialist courses in Excel for us including VBA for Excel, Ms Access and Ms Project. He is a Microsoft Certified Trainer with a degree in BA Psychology and an Honours degree in Classical Culture. He has trained and consulted for various Corporate Clients, Government Institutions and NGOs. He is also an expert on Microsoft Office integration and Visual Basic for Applications and has developed various systems on Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Access to streamline ICT processes throughout companies. Here is his most important advice for new users in Excel. 


01
February
2016

Nine Critical Skills for life-long learning

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” – Mahatma Gandhi

I’m a great believer in constantly refreshing your skills and learning new ways of doing things. This is especially important with software that you use daily. It’s so easy to get into a rut and continue using the safe but slow methods you’ve always used. A quick refresher can change everything for you in the daily work situation.

02
November
2015

Excel's Table feature

Excel's Table feature

Don’t ignore Excel tables! It’s a feature that has largely gone under the radar as people have upgraded to the new versions.

Tables are especially helpful if you regularly download large amounts of data which you then have to filter, sub-total and add new columns with formulas to complete your analysis.

22
September
2015

New Chart Types in Office 2016

New Chart Types in Office 2016

Microsoft Office 2016 is here! On the 22nd September Microsoft launched Office 2016. I would not recommend you upgrade for a while until the usual teething troubles are sorted out. But it’s worth knowing what’s new. The feature getting the most attention is the new chart types in Excel 2016. Now you can do Treemaps, Histograms, Waterfall, Pareto, Sunburst and Box and Whisker charts. Read what the Microsoft Office blog says about them.

15
October
2015

Picture it!

Picture it!

Visually representing data can often be the key to a successful PowerPoint presentation. However, even with the advent of Microsoft's SmartArt functionality, these diagrams can fall a little flat. Often they just don't offer the range of functionality your presentation might require. Diagrammer.com is a useful tool for presenters focused on truly engaging an audience. Here, we unpack its easy-to-use functionality for you.

17
August
2015

Let's Get Visual!

Let's Get Visual!

Everyone knows: visuals always improve your PowerPoint slides. On the other hand, bullet points can be the kiss of death. How can you get the balance right? Read on to find out.

20
July
2015

How to avoid "Death-by-PowerPoint"

How to avoid

PowerPoint is a powerful tool in the MS Office suite. Not only is it valuable in displaying data effectively, a well-presented slideshow can make all the difference to the effectiveness of your presentation.

But not if you get it wrong.

Death-by-PowerPoint has become an industry by-word, and it's one you don't want to fall prey to. Our blog series over the coming weeks will outline just how you can avoid this fate, and create presentations that POP!

08
June
2015

Excel’s hidden functionality

Excel’s hidden functionality

Excel commands not on the ribbon

How many of you know about Excel’s hidden functionality? A whole host of icons that you can add to the Quick Access Bar to quickly do repetitive tasks.

19
March
2014

How to save hours of frustration!

How to save hours of frustration!

Academic assignments, theses, dissertations

Take a long, hard look at your Microsoft Word skills before you embark on your Master’s thesis or Ph.D. Most people will use Microsoft Word to write it thinking that they can easily do it. If you know how to use Microsoft Word properly it will be a breeze, if you don’t it will be a nightmare. The research is one thing but the setting out of the research in the proper manner is another. Don’t think that you can write this and manually create the correct structure. You need to use Microsoft Word to automatically create captions, footnotes, a table of contents and figures, citations and a bibliography. By using the correct features in Word you will save yourself days of agonised frustration. I kid you not! 

Many universities have recognised the problems and will offer training in the necessary skills. But not every institution does and you can’t write a thesis without using the more advanced features of Word.

03
June
2013

Copying visible cells only

Copying visible cells only

You've filtered the table in your spreadsheet or applied subtotals to it. Now you just want to copy and paste the filtered rows to another worksheet.  But when you do that it continually takes all the rows that you don't want with it. What's the trick here? Read on to find out.

29
May
2013

Life's too short ....!

Life's too short ....!

Life’s too short to spend it doing your work the long and hard way. That’s why you need to work smarter with your Office programs.

26
February
2013

A first look at Office 2013

A first look at Office 2013

Here's a cool way to see the changes in Office 2013 at a glance.

18
February
2013

How to create different layouts and headers in the same document

Welcome to the last of our three-part series on advanced Ms Word features.  It will help you learn how to create different layouts and headers in the same document

12
February
2013

MS Word's table of contents feature sorted!

MS Word's table of contents feature sorted!

In the second of our three-part series I'm going to show you how to create a table of contents (TOC). You want Word to create the table for you. Gone are the days of manually typing the contents page and adding the page numbers.

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