1. Copilot for Microsoft Excel
Let's explore Copilot in Microsoft Excel.
2. Copilot in Excel
Copilot can help us uncover insights into our data, create visualizations, assist with formulas, and manipulate data.
3. Where is Copilot in Excel?
To use Copilot, click the icon in the toolbar.
4. Where is Copilot in Excel?
For Copilot to work in Excel, the file needs to be saved in OneDrive or SharePoint, and "AutoSave" must be turned on. If AutoSave is off or the file isn't shared to the cloud, Copilot can't interact with it in real time.
5. Organize Data into tabular format
When working with Copilot in Excel, it's important to use a tabular format for our data by organizing the information neatly into a table with columns and rows.
In this example, we have retail product data with ratings. To format it, select the range and apply "Format as Table" from the toolbar.
While Copilot can work with unstructured data or across worksheets, it works more efficiently when the data is well-organized.
6. Identify insights
Copilot can help identify trends we might miss, highlight outliers, and provide statistical summaries. This is especially valuable for those who frequently use Excel and have a strong understanding of data analysis.
7. Identify insights
Here, we have sales data for clothing products. We can either type a request or use a suggested prompt. When we click "Show data insights," Copilot generates a chart of new customers by product, with a short explanation.
8. Create charts and visualizations
We can go one step further and ask Copilot to add all data insights to the sheet.
Whether we need bar charts, line graphs, or pie charts, Copilot can quickly generate these visualizations.
9. Use formula suggestions
Formulas are at the heart of Excel's functionality. Copilot knows common formulas like SUM, AVERAGE, and VLOOKUP, and can create new formulas based on our data to retrieve meaningful insights.
If we know what information we want to retrieve but need to determine what formula to use, we can ask Copilot for help.
For example, we can prompt Copilot to "calculate the marketing spend per product sold on the current sheet".
10. Use formula suggestions
Copilot will analyze the data and output a formula along with an explanation. We can apply this formula by clicking the "Insert" button.
11. Convert data
Sometimes, we need to convert data for analysis. For example, to add a new column with prices in Euros, we prompt Copilot to convert the Sales column into Euros. Copilot analyzes the data and provides suggested changes. We can then insert the new column into our sheet.
12. Sort data
We can also sort the data by instructing Copilot to sort by the Year column and click "Apply" to see the result. These features help us manage, discover, and analyze data more efficiently.
As with other applications, it's important to review the output for accuracy.
13. Let's practice!
Let's practice!