Microsoft Excel – Collaborating in MS Teams to Analyze your Data Efficiently and Effectively

Microsoft Excel has always been a great tool to do data analysis.  In today’s tech environment, Microsoft has Excel available in their O365 suite.  Using MS O365, you can store Excel files in MS Teams for easy sharing and collaborative editing.  This article will focus on easy ways to share spreadsheets and get the most out of your pivot tables to complete your data analysis. 

STOP sending emails and having multiple versions of workbooks and START sharing documents in MS Teams (2020)

When working in Microsoft’s Teams application you can easily edit a workbook via the browser or Teams app without even opening Excel on your desktop.  This shared opening of the file allows users to filter their data differently without impacting other users in the file. 

Once the file is in MS Teams, you can easily copy the link to the file, use the chat are of the channel or an IM and paste the link in for additional commentary from other collaborators. 

This provides real time collaboration where in the past you would have sent versions around via email.  With this document available in MS Teams, I can easily access it (Sharepoint App) and edit it (Excel app) right on my iphone.  

STOP fumbling your way through a pivot table and START using recommended pivot tables.  (2020)

This feature allows you to let excel create a pivot table for you.  Once you have some of the properties dropped into the fields area of the pivot table, it is easy to adjust it further.

Pivot tables allow you to quickly analyze a dataset.  You can setup filters to filter your dataset down further.  

STOP wasting time modifying data and START using slicers in your pivot tables (2020)

The table below shows how to easily add in a slicer to your pivot table.  This allows for quick filtering vs using the filter drop down menu in a pivot table.  This makes it more visible and easier for others to see and understand what is making up the data.