Spreadsheet fundamentals for office work

Skills you'll practise

• Lay out data as a clean table: one header row, one record per row, one kind of data per column
• Write SUM and simple arithmetic formulas and explain when to use an absolute reference
• Sort and filter a table without separating rows, and total filtered data correctly
• Explain why displayed values and stored values can differ and use rounding deliberately
• Check a sheet for typed-over formulas, hard-coded numbers and broken references

Course outline

1. 1.Spreadsheet fundamentals for office workVideo · 2 min
2. 2.A table other people can useLesson · 15 min
3. 3.Formulas and referencesLesson · 18 min
4. 4.Sorting, filtering and rounding safelyLesson · 17 min
5. 5.Spreadsheet fundamentals for office work: knowledge checkKnowledge check · 15 questions
6. 6.Final exam7 questions · passing it completes the course, so people who already know the material can test out

Sources it draws on

The lessons and questions are written from these references, so learners can go back to the original.

• Microsoft Support: SUM function (ignores text values; avoid hard-coded numbers in formulas)
• Microsoft Support: Switch between relative and absolute references
• Microsoft Support: SUBTOTAL function (ignores rows excluded by a filter)
• Microsoft Support: Date systems in Excel (dates are stored as serial numbers)
• General office administration practice (scheduling, records, written communication, workflow coordination)