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Complete List of Things You Can Do With Excel

Do you know that Excel is not just a simple spreadsheet? Here’s a complete list of things you can do with Excel!

Contents

  1. Tools, Calculators and Simulations
  2. Dashboards and Reports with Charts
  3. Automate Jobs with VBA macros
  4. Solver Add-in & Statistical Analysis
  5. Data Entry and Lists
  6. Games in Excel!
  7. Educational use with Interactive features
  8. Create Cheatsheets with Excel
  9. Diagrams, Mockups, Gantt Charts
  10. Fetch live data from web
  11. Excel as a Database

Excel is one of the most used software in today’s digital world. Most people quickly open up an Excel file when they need to write or calculate anything. It is like “paper”. (remember those graph notebooks from school times..)

1-Paper-Excel-Spot-the-Difference
Good old days..

Actually, this is not only specific to Microsoft’s Excel but most of the spreadsheet software like open office or google sheets. However, we will focus on Excel and what can you do with it today, as it offers huge flexibility you will discover below.

1. You can create tools, calculators, and simulations with Excel

Let’s start with the main usage areas of Excel. As we all know, spreadsheets are designed to make calculations easier. So they contain “formulas”. They allow us to make basic math like summing, multiplying, finding average as well as advanced calculations like regression analysis, conversions, and so on.

When we combine these powerful math features with some tables, lists, or other UI elements, we can come up with a calculator. And most of the time they will be dynamic (meaning that when you change a parameter all the rest of the calculations will adapt accordingly)

Below see an example from our past studies as Someka:

2-Excel-Dashboard-Someka
For more details, check Someka – Custom Services

We have built this calculator for an app development company executive. He was changing the parameters he wants and sees the outcomes immediately.

This is great especially when you try to make big “models” in excel. Financial Modeling is one of the most used application areas of these big models. If we tried to do this with pen-paper (which used to be the way once upon a time) it would be horrible I guess:

3-Financial-Modeling-with-Excel-Joke-Someka-Blog
Financial Modeling with Excel Evolution

Financial modeling is also being used to test the excel skills of experts. They even make a competition for it: ModelOff

We also have a tool for startups to make a feasibility study playing with their own variables:

mobile-app-financial-model

This is a comprehensive Feasibility Study Excel Template for app startups with download projections, costs, financial calculations, charts, dashboard, and more.

2. You can create professional reports and dashboards with nice-looking charts and visualizations

The business world is demanding. It is not enough just to make the calculations, set up your tables, and write the text. You have to create pie charts, trends, line graphs, and many more. Whether you are getting prepared for your pitch or make a presentation in your company, you can use Excel’s chart features.

4-Reports-and-Charts-in-Excel-Someka-Blog
Reports and Charts in Excel

Pivot Tables

One of the greatest features which Excel offers is Pivot tables. This is an advanced Excel tool that helps you create dynamic summary reports from raw data very easily. After you create your table you can play with parameters easily with a drag and drop interface.

It looks like this:

5-Pivot-Tables-in-Excel-Reporting-Someka-Blog
Pivot Tables are quite useful

Dashboards

Complex excel models do have lots of variables, calculations, and settings. And instead of managing all variables one by one on different sheets, different places it is a very good idea to put them together like a “control panel”.

You can think dashboards as cockpits of planes.

Recently dashboards became very popular. There are lots of training videos about how to build and design control panels for our excel models. Actually, they are not so different from the rest of the calculations.

But the main idea is: if there is something you may want to change, later on, don’t write it directly in the formula but bind it to a variable.

Let’s say you are building a sales report for your manager. He asks you to make the file changeable so that he can see the results in US dollars or Euros according to the situation. Instead of writing an Fx rate into the calculations, you should bind this to a cell that you can play with later on.

Like this:

6-Excel-Dashboard-Logic-Someka-Blog
Excel Dashboard Logic

This may seem so obvious to some of you. But this is the basic approach of all dashboards in excel files. Of course, you can improve it with more complex formulas, buttons, cool charts, and even VBA but the main idea stands still.

Here is an example of a complete set of the dashboard:

7 Excel Dashboard - Someka Blog
Excel Dashboard from Someka Custom Services

 

Or a dashboard for a livestock feasibility study:

8 Excel Feasibility Study Dashboard - Someka Blog
Livestock Feasibility Study Dashboard

 

If you are interested in Sales Dashboards, you may want to check out our Excel template:

Sales-Reporter-Excel-Template-1

This is an interactive Sales Report Template in Excel. Features a dashboard with profitability, sales analysis and charts.

Other than that, Marketing ROI Calculator Excel Template would be very helpful to prioritize your marketing campaigns in Excel:

marketing-roi-calculator

It will provide essential metrics and help you to manage all your marketing campaign channels in one place.

3. You can code in Excel with VBA (Visual Basic for Applications)

Most of the users who use Excel extensively are already coding. But if you ask them whether they know how to code most probably they will say no. Of course, writing formulas is a very small part of the things you can do with VBA. It is a strong programming language that lets you create small scripts (macros), user forms, user-defined functions, add-ins, and even games! (which we will touch below separately)

I will not dive into VBA here since it is a detailed area. But there are some basic things that will be beneficial to know for those who use Excel often:

  • You can record macros for repeating jobs: You don’t need to code from scratch. Just click on the record macro button and it will write the code for you in the background. (If you want, you can modify later on)
  • It extends the borders of Excel world. If you feel like you are limited somehow in Excel, you are more like an advanced user. It is time to get a little bit into VBA.
  • You can create user forms with VBA only. If you see something like this, know that it is using VBA:
9-Excel-User-Form-VBA-Example-Someka-Blog
Someka Client Task Management Template

VBA is quite powerful and if you work with Excel extensively you won’t regret learning a bit. For example wouldn’t it be nice if you could send bulk emails from an Excel spreadsheat with a button click?

4. You can solve optimization problems and make statistical analysis (data analysis)

It is not surprising for spreadsheet software like Excel to offer advanced math techniques to make more complicated studies. (To be honest, I am not a statistics expert but with an engineering background, I will try to do my best to explain the basics. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong)

Data analysis is a trending concept for recent years with the development of powerful computers and improved software. We are collecting and recording much much more data compared to the past. Take a look at this chart to understand what I mean:

10-Big-Data-Trends-Someka-Blog.png
Source: Statista

Especially this part:

“more data has been created in the past two years than in the entire previous history of the human race”

It is a bit frightening, isn’t it? Ok, we are not going to dive into the “Big Data” world. Let’s get back to our humble excel world.

As we collect this much data, some people will want to analyze it. Otherwise, it makes no sense to spend billions of dollars on those data centers. Excel has built-in functions for basic descriptive statistics methods like Mean, Median, Mode, Standard Deviation, Variance etc.

But if we want to go a bit further I will mention two Excel features (actually add-ins) at this step: Solver and Regression Analysis

Solver

Have you ever heard of “optimization”? When we have more than one parameters that affect the outcome, we can only have a most optimized solution rather than a maximum solution. This may sound weird but it is very valid in our daily lives.

One of the simplest and popular examples is: Farmer Fence Optimization Problem

“A farmer owns 500 meters of the fence and wants to enclose the largest possible rectangular area. How should he use his fence?”

11 Farmer Fence Optimization Problem Excel Solver Solution - Someka Blog
Farmer Fence Optimization Problem Excel Solver Solution

This is a very simple example to explain what a solver does. But actually, you can run much more complicated data sets with Solver.

Regression Analysis

Since this is a bit advanced topic for this blog post, I will only touch the surface.

In most simple terms, regression analysis helps you find the correlation between the variables. For example, you may want to know what is the relation between the number of birds flown over your head and the money you earned today. (sorry for the silly example. No, I am not curious about it 🙂 You will need to gather sample data and put in an analysis to see if there is any correlation.

It seems something like this:

You put your data:

12 Excel Regression Analysis Sample Data - Someka Blog
Sample Data

Run the regression from Analysis Toolpak:

13 Analysis ToolPak Excel - Someka Blog
Analysis ToolPak Excel

And get results something like this:

14 Excel Regression Analysis Results - Someka Blog
Excel Regression Analysis Results

 

Of course, there is much more sophisticated software to run data analysis. However, there is a joke in business intelligence communities:

  • What is the most used feature of any business intelligence solution?
  • It is “Export to Excel”

Looks like we won’t stop using Excel anytime soon.

5. You can collect information, make data entry and create lists

Coming back from boring data analysis world, let’s mention the simplest and most handy usage area of excel: Make Lists!

It is already self-explaining so I won’t bother with the details. When you want to list down some simple data, take notes, create to-do lists, or anything. Just open the excel and write it down. Did we mention that “paper alternative” thing? Oh yes, we did.

A lead list example:

15-Lead-Lists-in-Excel-Someka-Blog-1
Lead List in Excel

You can also convert PDF files into Excel files in order to make it easier to work on. This can be done automatically with some software. But some pdf files cannot be processed automatically (like handwritten documents, scanned invoices, etc). You will need to do it manually.

16-PDF-to-Excel-Someka-Blog
PDF to Excel

When you want to play with the data on a web page, you can easily copy-paste it into an excel file and then you can sort, filter or do anything you want:

For example, Fortune 500 US List:

17-FortuneList-in-Excel-Sample-Someka-Blog
Fortune 500 List in Excel

Everybody loves to-do lists. And we have created useful to-do list in Excel for business or personal uses. Check it out, it is free:

To-Do List Excel Template

6. Games in Excel!

We already mentioned this in the VBA section above. But it is worth to talk a bit more.

Visual Basic allows you to code complex things like games as well. But of course, don’t expect a GTA or FIFA. Things like chess, sudoku, or Monopoly is OK. But, a few people have gone far and created more complicated things, like an RPG game. Take a look at this:

18 Arena XLSM Excel Games - Someka Blog
Source: carywalkin.ca

This game has been created by an accountant, Cary Walkin. I know it doesn’t look great but it is in Excel! (you can play it at the office 😉 )

Another example:

19 Flight Simulator Excel Games - Someka Blog
Source: excelunusual.com

A flight simulator in Excel?? Is it the same thing we use to sum up the sales figures? Lol yeah.

You can also embed flash games into Excel (like Super Mario, Angry Birds or whatever) But I count them off as they are not built with VBA.

7. You can use Excel for educational purposes with interactive features

As we mentioned in the Financial Modeling section, Excel is quite good for creating dynamic results according to the inputs. We get the benefit of this to create interactive tools.

One example that comes to my mind is this spreadsheet, guys from San Francisco have prepared:

20 Excel Everest Interactive Education - Someka Blog
Source: exceleverest.com

I haven’t tried it myself but an Excel tutorial in Excel. Liked the idea!

Another similar interactive Excel learning tool is from Keyskillset:

hotkeyexcellence-tin

Actually, this is not completely in Excel and works as separate software but I liked how they combine the Excel training with gamification features.

Quizzes are good tools for interactive learning and you can prepare in Excel as well. A quizmaster template from indzara.com:

 

21 Indzara Excel Quiz Master - Someka Blog
Source: indzara.com

 

A student lesson plan template in excel which we have prepared recently:

22-Student-Lesson-Plan-in-Excel-Someka-Blog
Someka Student Lesson Plan in Excel

You can learn Excel in Excel!

As said: Practice Makes Perfect!

You can test your Excel skills in Excel with Excel Formulas Trainer:

someka-excel-formulas-full-trainer-inpost

This is actually an Excel template prepared with VBA macros and basically works as a practice worksheet. It has 30 sections and around 100 questions. You can learn VLOOKUP, IF and much more excel formulas by doing. If you like the idea of “learning by doing”, then it is worth to check.

Also, this online course from GoSkills is for everyone as well, covering beginner, intermediate and advanced lessons.

8. You can prepare “cheat sheets” in Excel

By cheat sheets, we don’t refer to the piece of paper with information written down on it that an unethical person might create if they weren’t prepared for a test. What we mean is a reference tool that provides simple, brief instructions for accomplishing a specific task. We use this term because it is highly popular recently.

For example, this is a cheat sheet:

23 HTML CheatSheet in Excel - Someka Blog
Created by Jacob Seidelin

This compacted and summarized info is very useful in many aspects. When you try to memorize things, lookup, reference, etc. And can be easily created with Excel. Let’s make a Google search for a cheat sheet made in Excel.

This one is from Dave Child (cheatography.com) and I was also using this one I first learned HTML:

24 HTML Cheat Sheet in Excel - Someka Blog
Created by Dave Child

The last example is an Excel Cheatsheet made for Excel shortcuts:

Excel-Shortcuts-Cheat-Sheet-Someka-Blog-S01-V2

Of course, if you are looking for stylish infographics and cheat sheets, you should check out design software.

9. You can prepare Diagrams, Mockups, or Gantt Charts

I know Excel is maybe not the best tool to do these. There are great programs or websites to make mockups, diagrams, brainstorming, mind-mapping, or project scheduling. But there are habits as well. Even though I am very open to try and use these kinds of brand-new tools, I find myself using excel for a mockup or a mind map. (select shapes, put notes, put arrows, change colors etc. Omg it is tedious)

Gantt charts can be a bit old-school as agile project management methods are increasing in popularity, they are still being used widely. There are several Gantt chart excel templates on the web.

A Gantt chart example from vertex42.com:

Source: vertex42.com
Source: vertex42.com

 

I just found out a reporting structure mockup I have prepared in Excel once upon a time:

26 Making Mockups in Excel - Someka Blog
A bit blurry but explains the purpose

 

By the way, did you see our Automatic Organization Chart Generator?

This is an Excel template that lets you create organization charts from Excel lists with a click of a button. It can be useful for small business owners and Human Resources departments.

Here’s another Gantt Chart example from Someka’s portfolio:

WBS-Gantt-Chart-Someka-Excel-Template-SS1

>> Download Gantt Chart Maker

These type of charts are directly related to Excel as most of the companies already keep their data in spreadsheets. But I also know people who even build their website mockups in Excel (with links to other sections, placement of buttons, sliders etc.).

10. You can fetch live data from the web into Excel

Sometimes you may need your excel files to be updated automatically from a live data source. For example, if you are making a stock market analysis and want the latest data of some stock prices at NYSE, you can connect your Excel file to a data feed and let it take the latest info automatically (unless you want to input them one by one!)

As this is a comprehensive topic I will leave it for another post. But here is a few things you can fetch into excel:

  • Stock prices
  • Match results of soccer, NBA, NFL or any sports games (from live score sites)
  • Fx rates
  • Real-time flight data of airports
  • Any info in a shared database (whether it is your company intranet or public)

This topic is getting more and more important as most data is kept on cloud systems. We don’t download info bits to our computers as we used to do in the past. So, Microsoft is working hard to improve the web integration of Excel.

Recommended Reading: Can Excel Extract Data From Website?

11. Use Excel as a simple database

Yes, it is not the best idea to use Excel as a database. Because it is not designed for this purpose. Queries will take a long time especially when data gets bigger. It can be unreliable sometimes and not very secure. It is all accepted. However, we are not always after a complete set of the database systems and it can serve us as a mini-warehouse for our little data.

crm-excel-template

For example, if you keep records of your invoice data and want to make some sales analysis, it can be a good starting point. If later, you want to see more details, want to record more breakdowns you will need to move to a “real database”. It can be Access, SQL or anything. Just keep an eye on your Excel file because it has a maximum of 1 million rows.

Some of you may say “hey, it is more than enough, isn’t it?”

Generally yes. But you cannot believe how data increase in size when you want to see details. I remember when I was working as an analyst in a game development company, we were holding records of 1+ billion rows of data.

Precisely because of that, we have built some of our Excel templates (which is the favorite feature of all the users) with a database section. You may check our Invoice Generators and see how invoice recording would be super easy in Excel!

price-quote-generator-in-excel
Someka Invoice Generators in Excel

Conclusion

As the internet gets more available for everybody people started to use collaboration platforms more than before. In this aspect, online spreadsheet applications, like Google Sheets, increase in popularity and stands as a competitor to Microsoft’s Excel. Other free alternatives like open office or libre office are also popular.  But if you need the advanced functionalities of Excel there is still no substitute.

Business-Analysis-Excel-Bundle-Banner

Microsoft is improving the software actively. PowerPivot, Power BI, and Excel Online are all brand new features they developed recently. We will wait and see how things evolve in the following years. (investintech.com has made interviews with Excel experts about the future of Excel)

I tried to cover most of the things that can be done with Excel. If I have missed anything or if you find any errors, let me know by commenting down or sending an email.

Also, don’t forget to check our Excel Templates Collection. You may find something useful for yourself:

Excel Templates and Spreadsheets – Someka

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