Totbox — Microsoft 365 & AI Training
All Copilot courses

½ day Copilot series

Copilot in Excel

Analyze, Calculate and Visualize with Copilot

½ day (3 hours) Live online — English or French Intermediate Approximately 75% hands-on practice
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C$249 per workshop, per person

Course overview

Microsoft 365 Copilot in Excel can help you explore data, build formulas, surface insights and create visualizations faster than traditional techniques alone. This focused, hands-on workshop concentrates on the Excel workflows that provide the greatest day-to-day productivity gains for data workers.

Participants learn how to navigate Copilot's Edit, Plan and Chat modes, prepare data for effective Copilot interaction, build and modify workbooks, generate and validate formulas, analyze data for insights, and communicate results through PivotTables and charts.

The session applies the Goal, Context, Constraints and Sources prompt framework throughout, with approximately 75% of the time spent on practical exercises using realistic business datasets.

Course agenda

Unit 1 — Working Effectively with Copilot in Excel

20 minutes

  • Navigate the current Copilot experience in Excel
  • Understand Edit, Plan and Chat modes
  • Choose the appropriate mode for different tasks
  • Understand what Copilot can modify
  • Prepare workbook data for effective Copilot interaction
  • Work with tables, headers and data quality
  • Apply Goal, Context, Constraints and Sources to Excel prompts

Hands-on practice: Examine a business dataset, identify potential data issues and improve several Excel prompts.

Unit 2 — Build and Modify Workbooks

35 minutes

  • Create and modify worksheet content
  • Add and reorganize information
  • Sort and filter data
  • Apply formatting
  • Apply conditional formatting
  • Perform multi-step workbook changes
  • Use Edit mode effectively
  • Review changes made by Copilot

Hands-on practice: Progressively transform a raw workbook into a structured, management-ready workbook.

Unit 3 — Formulas and Calculations

40 minutes

  • Generate formulas from business requirements
  • Describe required business logic rather than formula syntax
  • Explain unfamiliar formulas
  • Modify formulas
  • Troubleshoot formula problems
  • Create calculated columns
  • Apply calculations across data
  • Ask Copilot for alternative approaches
  • Validate Copilot-generated formulas and results

Hands-on practice: Solve several increasingly complex business calculations without being given the required formulas.

Break

10 minutes

Unit 4 — Analyze Data and Discover Insights

45 minutes

  • Ask analytical questions about business data
  • Move beyond vague analytical prompts
  • Generate useful data summaries
  • Compare categories and time periods
  • Identify trends
  • Find exceptions and outliers
  • Investigate relationships within data
  • Ask follow-up analytical questions
  • Challenge Copilot's initial interpretation
  • Distinguish observations from business conclusions
  • Verify insights against source data

Hands-on practice: Investigate a business dataset and progressively develop a management-level analysis.

Unit 5 — PivotTables, Charts and Communicating Results

25 minutes

  • Create PivotTables using natural language
  • Specify rows, columns and values
  • Create charts
  • Modify generated visualizations
  • Highlight important information
  • Ask Copilot to recommend useful representations
  • Evaluate whether a visualization supports the business question

Hands-on practice: Turn analytical findings into an appropriate PivotTable and management visualization.

Unit 6 — Advanced Productivity and Best Practices

5 minutes

  • Determine when to use Edit, Plan or Chat
  • Establish effective verification habits
  • Recognize when traditional Excel techniques are more appropriate
  • Apply key Copilot in Excel best practices

Key takeaway

Participants leave with a practical methodology for using Copilot in Excel—from preparing data and building workbooks to generating formulas, discovering insights and communicating results with confidence.

What we cover

  1. 1Working effectively with Copilot in Excel
  2. 2Build and modify workbooks
  3. 3Formulas and calculations
  4. 4Analyze data and discover insights
  5. 5PivotTables, charts and communicating results
  6. 6Advanced productivity and best practices

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