Course overview
This course is part of the “Introduction to Data Analysis with Excel” skill path, which we designed for anyone who wants to gain the practical skills in Excel to perform data analysis and visualization, and ultimately help organizations make better informed decisions. We designed it for aspiring data professionals with little experience and learners who use basic Excel in their daily jobs and want to enhance their skills.
Preparing data involves cleaning and organizing. In this course you’ll not only learn how to prepare data with Excel by organizing data into a spreadsheet using worksheets and tables but also how to clean data by removing duplicates and irrelevant data. You’ll also learn how to consolidate the data to prepare it for analysis.
Best of all, you’ll learn by doing – you’ll practice and get feedback directly in the browser.
Key skills
- Importing data into an Excel spreadsheet from more than one data source
- Organizing data into a spreadsheet using worksheets and tables
- Cleaning, manipulating, and modifying the data
- Consolidating the data for analysis
Course outline
Preparing Data in Excel [6 lessons]
Importing Data into Excel Spreadsheets 1h
Lesson Objectives- Define delimiters and use them to import data
- Import Excel files, text files, and CSV files
- Use copy & paste and drag & drop to load files
Organizing Data 1h
Lesson Objectives- Organize data with cells and ranges
- Organize data into tables, worksheets, and workbooks
- Apply Excel functions and formulas for organizing data
Cleaning Data - Part I 2h
Lesson Objectives- Find and remove duplicate data
- Find and remove extra spaces
- Separate data without delimiters
- Correct inaccurate or irrelevant data
- Update missing or incomplete data
Cleaning Data Part II 1h
Lesson Objectives- Standardize the case for text
- Standardize formats for dates
- Standardize formats for numbers
- Work with outliers
- Verify clean data with visualizations
Consolidating Data 2h
Lesson Objectives- Manipulate headers
- Work with the Consolidate tool
- Merge data using copy and paste
- Use VLOOKUP
- Use INDEX/MATCH
Guided Project: Preparing Data with Excel 1h
Lesson Objectives- Import data into a spreadsheet from more than one data source
- Organize data into a spreadsheet using worksheets and tables
- Clean data by removing duplicates and irrelevant data
- Work with missing data and inconsistent data types
- Consolidate the data for analysis
Projects in this course
Preparing Data with Excel
For this project, you’ll take on the role of a data professional in a marine biology research organization. You’ll use Excel to import, organize and clean a dataset on shark attacks, preparing it for an analysis team to study trends in attack location and frequency over time.
The Dataquest guarantee
Dataquest has helped thousands of people start new careers in data. If you put in the work and follow our path, you’ll master data skills and grow your career.
We believe so strongly in our paths that we offer a full satisfaction guarantee. If you complete a career path on Dataquest and aren’t satisfied with your outcome, we’ll give you a refund.
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Work with real data from day one with interactive lessons and hands-on exercises.
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