Intro -- Excel Best Practices for Business -- About the Author -- Credits -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Contents at a Glance -- Contents -- Introduction -- How to Use This Book -- What You Need to Use This Book -- What This Book Covers -- Conventions Used in this Book -- Icons Used in the Book -- How This Book Is Organized -- Part I: Best Practice Essentials -- Chapter 1: A Foundation for Developing Best Practices -- Preliminaries -- Working with Different Ways To Compute a Number in Excel -- Understanding Alternative Ways to Represent Cells -- Computing a Number in Excel -- Excel Functions -- Closing Thoughts -- Chapter 2: Mastering Spreadsheet Construction Techniques -- One Size Does Not Fit All -- Understanding Simple Spreadsheets -- Building a Spreadsheet: A Simple Example -- Complex Spreadsheets -- Closing Thoughts -- Chapter 3: Your Handy Reference for Manipulating Data -- Excel String Manipulation Functions You Need to Know -- Sorting Techniques -- First Steps to Tidying Up Your Data -- The Sentinel LookAhead Technique -- Other Functions for Effective Data Manipulation -- Useful Sorting Techniques -- Data Surgery and Data Manipulation -- Closing Thoughts -- Chapter 4: Compiling, Managing, and Viewing Your Data -- Preliminaries -- The Number Line-Up -- Putting Data into Perspective with PivotTables -- Preparing Your Data -- Closing Thoughts -- Part II: Spreadsheet Ergonomics -- Chapter 5: Scaling the Peaks of Mt. Data -- The Art of Data Slogging -- Climbing Past the Foothills -- Closing Thoughts -- Chapter 6: Let the Data Speak for Itself: Viewing and Presenting Data -- They Threw In the Kitchen Sink -- Using Excel Filters -- Presentation Tear Sheets -- Advanced Filters -- Tips for Spreadsheet Comments -- Closing Thoughts -- Chapter 7: Creating and Using Smart Data -- What Is Smart Data, Anyhow? -- Conditional Formatting.

From RAGs to Riches: An Interactive Array of Colors -- Perimeter Surveillance: Smart Borders -- Miscellaneous Topics -- Closing Thoughts -- Chapter 8: Analyzing Data -- Charting Your Course in a Sea of Data -- Quantifying Uncertainty: Techniques and Rules -- Data Sculpting: Crafting Data with the Excel Goal Seek and Solver Tools -- Suggestions for Further Reading -- Closing Thoughts -- Chapter 9: How Not to Get Stuck in the MUD ( Messed-Up Data) -- Ambiguous and Incomplete Data -- Inconsistent Data and Computations -- Square Peg/Round Hole Scenario -- Analyses/Reports Built on Too Much White Noise or Static -- Closing Thoughts -- Part III: Special Topics: Getting the Numbers Right -- Chapter 10: Going for the Facelift: Spreadsheet Makeovers -- Spreadsheet Makeover Techniques -- A Hands-On Example of a Spreadsheet Makeover -- Alternative Approaches -- Closing Thoughts -- Chapter 11: Spreadsheet Auditing: Challenging the Numbers of Others -- Structural Analysis of Spreadsheets -- Off-Spreadsheet Analysis -- State Transition Analysis -- Testing the Reasonableness of Spreadsheets -- Closing Thoughts -- Chapter 12: Spreadsheet Portals, XML, and Web Services -- Spreadsheet Portals and Desktop Client Portals -- Simple Client Portals -- Complex Spreadsheet Portals -- XML in Excel 2003 -- The XML "Staircase" Problem in Excel 2003 ( and Other Things to Keep in Sight) -- Web Services - with a Twist -- Closing Thoughts -- Chapter 13: Assistive Technologies and Assistive Portals -- Background -- The Economics of Making Spreadsheets Accessible -- Setting Up a Screen Reader -- Spreadsheets with Screen Readers -- Spreadsheet Structure -- Graphical Components -- Road Map for Creating the Assistive Portal -- An Important Design Strategy: Remove Hardwired Dependencies -- Assistive Portals -- Closing Thoughts -- Appendix A: Excel Configuration and Setup.

Backward Compatibility -- Configuring Excel -- Changing Additional Settings -- Appendix B: Information for Macintosh Users -- Appendix C: Excel Best Practice Techniques and Hip Pocket Tips -- Appendix D: What's on the CD-ROM -- System Requirements -- Using the CD with Windows -- Using the CD with the Mac OS -- What's on the CD -- Troubleshooting -- Index.

Spreadsheets have become the de facto standard for communicating business information and the preferred tool for analyzing business data. In this current climate, the accuracy and clarity of spreadsheets are paramount. However, busy managers have little time to sift through heaps of reference books to extrapolate techniques for making polished spreadsheets. Even with finished spreadsheets in hand, managers and business professionals still need a book which holds up a mirror to their real world situations and reflects hidden flaws; and then takes the next step and guides the reader in specific ways to rework these critical documents. Excel Best Practices for Business enables readers to examine their work and ask critical questions. And once asked, this book also answers with dynamic, practical approaches and provides Take-Aways extrapolated from real situations across a managerial spectrum, making this book more mentor than reference. In this book, a critical need is met. Book Highlights: XML in Microsoft Office Excel 2003: Entirely new to Excel 2003 is major support for XML, making Excel truly web capable and Internet ready. This book provides extensive coverage of these new features from a hands-on perspective. It identifies subtleties, gotchas and problems, and shows you practical solutions and workarounds. SPREADSHEET PORTALS: This book introduces the topic of Spreadsheet Portals, which elevates spreadsheet practices for the Internet-ready software to the next level. Aside from explaining the basic concepts and principles of Desktop Client Portals, best practice techniques for building your portal pages and reference implementations are provided. These reference implementations, sample spreadsheets, and online demos are provided on the book's CD. SPREADSHEET MAKEOVERS: What do you do when your manager or boss asks you to take over a complex,

spreadsheet-based application and send out reports every two weeks? The person who created the spreadsheet no longer works for the company. Aside from a few emails, there's no documentation. You look at the spreadsheet and you find it has flaws. Never mind about fixing the old reports; the new ones are going to go out with your name on it. This report is not your prime responsibility. You do not have the time or resources to turn this into a whole project, yet you can't afford to leave it the way it is. Excel Best Practices for Business provides a step-by-step approach to these "Mission Impossible" situations and walks you through the steps with fully worked out examples. ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGIES: For the first time in a mainstream book, the topic of preparing accessible spreadsheets for individuals with disabilities is addressed. Government agencies needing to make electronic information section 508 compliant and corporations choosing not to alienate communities with special needs will find the techniques presented invaluable. You will learn from a hands-on perspective how to organize and design accessible spreadsheets for the visually impaired that will work with Screen Reader software, how to set up Screen Reader software, and how to build graphical components that will work with Screen Readers. These practices are carried to the next level with the introduction of Assistive Portals. This allows you to make spreadsheets accessible and avoid having to alter your original spreadsheets. The Portal Page does all the work. Because it is table driven, there are no formulas or scripts to modify. Think of how this will change the economics of preparing accessible documents. There are many more topics in Excel Best Practices For Business including: practical techniques for visualizing hard-to-present data, incorporating "Smart Data" into your

spreadsheets, how to build a Data Overpass, quantification of uncertainty, conversion of mountains of.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.