Your data lives in lists. This is the course where you stop scrolling and start summarizing.
Who delivers this: I’ve delivered classroom, virtual, and onsite training across North America since 2004, twenty-two years. MA Candidate, Learning and Technology, Royal Roads.
Excel 301 is the data-analysis day for staff who have outgrown filtering and copy-pasting subtotals. It teaches the table discipline, lookup craft, filter logic, and PivotTable workflow that turn rows of operational data into answers.
Who this is for
- Fit. Analysts, team leads, ops coordinators, and finance staff working with lists of more than a few hundred rows.
- Fit. Anyone whose monthly report involves “I copied the values to a new tab so the formulas wouldn’t break.”
- Not fit. Staff still nervous about IF, named ranges, or copy-paste-with-formats. Take 201 first; the foundations make 301 land. And if your real question is “what happens if margin drops to 10 percent,” that’s modelling, which is 302.
Prerequisites: 201-fluent or equivalent self-taught. IF, charts, named ranges, and structured references all feel familiar.
What you’ll be able to do after
- Convert ranges into Excel Tables and use structured references that don’t break when rows are added.
- Look up related values with VLOOKUP, XLOOKUP, and INDEX/MATCH, and know when to use which.
- Sort and filter at scale with AutoFilter, Advanced Filter, and custom sort orders.
- Build PivotTables, modify layouts, calculate fields, and use slicers for interactive analysis.
- Use database functions (DSUM, DCOUNT) for criteria-driven summaries.
- Apply dynamic-array formulas (UNIQUE, FILTER, SORT) where the version supports them.
The day, block by block
- Make a list that grows without breaking your formulas. Converting ranges to Tables, structured references, automatic expansion, and why Tables are non-negotiable once analysis gets serious.
- Pull the right value out of another table every time. VLOOKUP, XLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH, when to use each, why XLOOKUP is the default if your version supports it, and why you’ll still inherit VLOOKUP files for the next decade.
- Narrow thousands of rows down to the ones that matter. AutoFilter for everyday work, Advanced Filter for criteria sets, and custom sort orders for non-alphabetical lists (priority, severity, region).
- Answer a different question without rebuilding the report. Building PivotTables from source data, modifying layouts on the fly, calculated fields, and refresh discipline. This is the block I plan the whole day around. I take a list someone in the room would normally work by scrolling and eyeballing subtotals, and we turn it into a PivotTable together in about four minutes. The hour of scrolling they were braced for is just gone, and you can see the recalculation happen on their face before it happens on the screen.
- Hand a manager a filter they can drive in the meeting. PivotCharts and slicers: visualizing the pivot and building interactive filters a non-analyst can use without help.
- Replace a multi-step list chore with one modern formula. UNIQUE, FILTER, SORT, SEQUENCE, the dynamic-array equivalents for several traditional list tasks.
Real examples we’ll work through
- A 50,000-row sales export turned into a quarterly summary by region in a PivotTable.
- A product-catalogue lookup that pulls price and stock from a master table.
- Customer-list deduplication using UNIQUE and a structured reference.
I teach the table discipline before the PivotTable on purpose, even though the pivot is the part people came for. A PivotTable built on a loose range is a small time bomb: it works in class and quietly stops including new rows the following month. Get the Table right first and the rest of the day holds up after you go back to your own desk.
Format, duration, and pricing
301 runs as a full-day class. Many analyst teams pair it with 302 (modelling) for a two-day back-to-back block, which uses the two-day onsite rate below. Pricing is the same across the 101 through 302 levels. (401 is a separately scoped track and priced on its own page.)
| Format | From price (CAD) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Full-day class (6 hr) | from $1,495 | Up to 3 participants; $175 each additional (maximum 10) |
| Two-day onsite workshop | from $2,990 | Up to 3 participants; $175 each additional (maximum 10) |
CAD. Travel within 50 km of Fort Erie included; beyond 50 km, travel and accommodation are billed at cost. Final scope and quote confirmed on the discovery call.
Where this fits in the Microsoft Excel ladder
Shaped for: Excel users ready for the data-analysis surface: tables, PivotTables, slicers, dynamic arrays.
Most learners come here from: Microsoft Excel Training 201.
From here, the most common next steps:
- Microsoft Excel Training 401, the senior track for analysts moving into reporting workflows with Power Query and dashboard design.
The full training catalogue shows how the Microsoft Office courses sit alongside the WordPress training track.