A new session of each course opens each month, allowing you to enroll whenever your busy schedule permits!
How does it work? Once a session starts, two lessons will be released each week, for the six-week duration of your course. You will have access to all previously released lessons until the course ends.
Keep in mind that the interactive discussion area for each lesson automatically closes 2 weeks after each lesson is released, so you’re encouraged to complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.
The Final Exam will be released on the same day as the last lesson. Once the Final Exam has been released, you will have 2 weeks plus 10 days to complete the Final and finish any remaining lessons in your course. No further extensions can be provided beyond these 10 days.
Week One
Lesson 01 - Excel Basics
Wednesday
In this lesson, you'll develop a solid understanding of the Excel interface. You'll become fluent in the secret language spoken only by Excel users, you'll discover the best way to correct just about any mistake you might make in Excel, and you'll find yourself gliding effortlessly from cell to cell, leaving behind expertly written labels, numbers, and formulas.
Lesson 02 - Creating a Worksheet
Friday
In this lesson, you'll learn five simple steps you should always follow to ensure that your worksheets are always well-planned, well-constructed, and beautifully formatted.
Week Two
Lesson 03 - Time-Savers
Wednesday
This lesson will teach you the tricks of the Excel masters: a wide variety of useful shortcuts guaranteed to save you time, energy, and frustration. You'll also spend some time working with the Quick Analysis and Flash Fill tools. By the time you finish this lesson, you'll really start to feel like an Excel pro.
Lesson 04 - Relative, Absolute, Mixed, and Circular References
Friday
Do you know the difference between a relative reference, an absolute reference, a mixed reference, and a circular reference? You will after this lesson. In this lesson, you'll learn to write sophisticated formulas that can help ease you through some rather sticky scenarios.
Week Three
Lesson 05 - Three-Dimensional Workbooks
Wednesday
With enough practice, most Excel users quickly become adept at organizing their worksheets across two dimensions: rows and columns. But only a select few will learn how to take their worksheets into the third dimension. In this lesson, you'll join that exclusive group. Prepare to have your socks knocked off as you gain hands-on experience in the construction of three-dimensional workbooks.
Lesson 06 - Sorting, Subtotaling, and Filtering
Friday
No Excel course would be complete without a discussion of Excel's amazing data-crunching capabilities. In this lesson, you'll learn how to build a table in Excel as well as how to subtotal, sort, and filter.
Week Four
Lesson 07 - Charting Basics
Wednesday
In this lesson, you'll explore the exciting world of charts. You'll build your first graph and learn how easy it is to adjust the chart type, labels, titles, colors, and other aspects of your chart.
Lesson 08 - Advanced Charting Techniques
Friday
In this lesson, you'll dig deep into Excel's charting capabilities. You'll explore everything from bar charts and line charts to more prosaic graphs like the pie chart and 3D charts. You'll find out how to personalize your charts with photographs, text labels, and drawings. You'll also discover the best ways to format your chart for print or otherwise display the truly impressive charts that you'll be creating.
Week Five
Lesson 09 - Intro to Excel's Statistical Functions
Wednesday
Excel includes many powerful functions that can automatically perform some very complicated tasks for you. In this lesson, you'll learn some very interesting ways to put these functions to work for you. You'll find out how to ask Excel to magically derive averages, modes, maximums, minimums, and other useful statistics from nothing more than a column or two of numbers.
Lesson 10 - Financial Functions
Friday
You'll continue your exploration of Excel functions with an in-depth look at Excel's handy financial functions. By the time this lesson is over, you'll be able to figure out how much money you'll have when you retire, when your kids reach college, or just before your next vacation. You'll be able to calculate the monthly payment on just about any type of loan, and you'll know how to figure out how long it will take to pay off your credit cards. You'll even create an amortization table of your very own, just like the one lenders use to track a loan's payoff amount over time.
Week Six
Lesson 11 - Worksheet Automation
Wednesday
In this lesson, you'll find out how to automate just about any task you find tedious or time-consuming. You'll discover how to move your most frequently used commands from their present, obscure locations to a much more convenient place: the toolbar that's always perched at the very top of your screen. You'll also learn how you can use macros to reduce just about any complex task to a single keystroke.
Lesson 12 - Mastering Excel's IF Function
Friday
You'll be intrigued by the final lesson, in which you'll learn how to use Excel to aid you in decision making. You'll use a special function in Excel that allows it to make comparisons and use those comparisons as the basis for important decisions.