Skills Levels of Excel

Hi Kris,

Without a proper definition of 'advanced' there is no way to determine which category you are in now and how much more effort it will take you to become 'advanced'. You need to see what skills exactly the employer is after. For example, if the job is to create Excel-based applications then you may to learn vba, on the other hand if the IT department has completely blocked all macros from running then vba is useless in this environment, etc.

Good luck.

Hi Kris,

I agree with galvinpaddy in that the term "advanced" could mean many different things. It will depend on the job and what types of data it gives you and what is needed for an answer.

I believe you might need to understand TABLES and all those things that go along with them. They are fundamental to the power of Excel. Autofilters and Advanced Filters in tables might be considered an advanced topic. If/when you get a grasp of the Criteria Range in Advanced Filters then Pivot Tables might be your next topic.

A separate and important topic would be VBA. In Excel 2010 you may be required to lean Macros which is different than VBA to put things on the net where they can still work.

I've learned a lot from the John Wallenbach books and would suggest them as a good source. http://spreadsheetpage.com/

When you run into a problem, you can always post it here and we will give you our best guess on what needs to be learned to get an answer.

Originally Posted by MarvinP

In Excel 2010 you may be required to lean Macros which is different than VBA to put things on the net where they can still work

MP, I thought all vba/ macros don't work on the web apps and other online excel extensions. Was I wrong?

I started with Excel VBA for dummies... forget about dummies, this is 90% of everythign you will need to work with vba. Advanced techniques and tricks will come with time and experience and learning from others' examples.

Also as you master vba, the internet is your greatest weapon. Your problem has probably already been asked 100 times before so a good search will provide turn-key solutions in most scenarios (or at least solutions similar enough for you to adapt to your problem)

Hi abousetta,

I've been in the Microsoft Access world for the last few months, working on a huge genealogical database. You are most likely correct when it comes to current versions of Excel although Excel has a save as web page option. In Access 2010 there is a big difference between Macros and VBA. The new Macro language in Access is meant to work on the net, on a webpage. The Macro language is a subset of VBA of things that are accomplishable on a webpage. I expect future versions of Microsoft Office to go in this direction.

Once again, "advanced" is hard to define as we don't know what direction that term will take the OP. Excel is so big there are many "advanced" topics. I'm often ammused on all the functions that were current in old versions of Excel that have been hidden in the "Customize the Ribbon" option. For example look for a "PivotTable and PivotChart Wizard" that is only availble if you add it from the Customize Ribbon dialog. Along with old features are the new ones like the Slicer tool for Pivot Tables. There are also new Solver codes to improve guessing algorithms. There are even new add-ins like PowerPivots to extend Excel on the net or with multiple tables. "Advanced" is a moving target as we have all seen.

Thanks MP. I know that Office is getting more and more 'web-friendly' but didn't know about the new subset they created. I guess that's why Access 2010 only runs on MS Sharepoint Server to allow the usage of the new web-friendly vba.

I have a self-assessment I ask people to complete to group them into classes: https://www.box.com/s/3uquyiie71o8yzt4efz1