Three Tips on How to Leverage Microsoft Excel in Office 365 and Goal Seek

Microsoft Excel has always been a great tool to do data analysis. In today’s tech environment, Microsoft has Excel available in their Office 365 suite. Using MS O365, you can store Excel files in the cloud for easy sharing. This article will focus on easy ways to share spreadsheets and collaborate in the cloud, as well as talk about Goal Seek, which is a nice tool Microsoft has handy in Excel.

STOP Using Shared Workbooks on a File Server and START Sharing Documents in O365

When working in Microsoft’s cloud, you can easily edit a workbook via the browser without even opening Excel on your desktop. In addition, clicking the “Share” button (shown in the lower right-hand corner of the next image) provides you with a quick link that you can email to other colleagues.  

Once you click “Share,” copying the link is made accessible by the “Copy Link” button shown in the screen. This provides real-time collaboration, whereas in the past you would have had to setup a shared workbook on a file server. Getting documents off file servers and into the cloud also opens the door for mobile access. With this document available in Sharepoint, I can easily access it (Sharepoint app) and edit it (Excel app) right on my smart phone. 

An added bonus to having documents in the cloud is the versioning and backup capabilities. You can easily grab a previous copy of a workbook via the cloud.

STOP Creating an Interest Rate Spreadsheet and START Using Goal Seek

The goal seek feature allows you to find a number you are looking for based upon some criteria. See the example here with the formula entered:

In this example, we are looking to ensure our payment is $900 a month, so we need to determine what our interest rate needs to be to ensure we are not paying for an item for more than $900 a month. The “Goal” cell, in this case cell B4, must be a formula. Once you have the data above filled out, follow these steps:

In the above example, cell B3 will continue to change until it achieves a value of -$900 in cell B4.

Bonus Email Tip:

STOP Wasting Time Searching for Emails and START Using Search Commands in O365 Outlook

Using search commands allows you to quickly narrow your search versus just using the key words by themselves. See the examples below.