Excel Power Skills: Master Functions, Formulas, and Macros – A 3-Hour Workshop

10 Nov 2026
10:00 AM PDT | 01:00 PM EDT
180 Minutes

This 3-hour Excel workshop covers three intermediate to advanced features that bring automation into your spreadsheets: formulas and functions, lookup functions and macros.

You'll start with the top 10 functions every user should know, including SUM, AVERAGE, COUNT, IF and its variants, date functions and text functions for cleaning imported data. Next come lookup functions, which beat searching for data by hand: VLOOKUP and its arguments, approximate matches, lookups across workbooks, handling #N/A with IFNA and IFERROR, HLOOKUP, and why INDEX and MATCH is often the better choice.

Finally, you'll create a macro with the built-in recorder, save a macro-enabled workbook, run it and make simple edits in VBA. No prior macro or VBA experience is needed.

WHY SHOULD YOU ATTEND?

A handful of functions, lookups and macros can save hours of manual work and make your spreadsheets perform better, whether you run a small business, work in an office or use Excel casually.

This workshop suits business owners, executives, managers, accountants and CPAs, financial consultants, auditors, bookkeepers, IT, HR and marketing staff, and anyone who works with large amounts of data in Excel.

AREA COVERED

Formulas and functions

  • Statistical functions including SUM, AVERAGE, MAX, MIN and COUNT
  • IF and its counterparts COUNTIF, SUMIF and AVERAGEIF
  • Calculating dates with TODAY and NOW
  • Text functions for imported data, including LEFT, RIGHT, LEN, TRIM and CONCATENATE

Lookup functions

  • The arguments in the VLOOKUP function
  • Why absolute references matter in lookup functions
  • Approximate matches with VLOOKUP
  • Simplifying multiple-field lookups with concatenation
  • Looking up data from another workbook
  • How VLOOKUP stops at the first match in a list
  • Why VLOOKUP sometimes returns #N/A
  • The IFNA function (Excel 2013 and later) and IFERROR for handling missing matches
  • Horizontal matches with HLOOKUP
  • Why INDEX and MATCH often beats VLOOKUP or HLOOKUP
  • Finding an item's position with MATCH

Macros

  • Workbook macros vs. personal macros
  • Making macros available to all your workbooks
  • Creating a macro with the macro recorder
  • Saving a file as a macro-enabled workbook
  • Running a macro
  • Viewing the recorded macro in VBA
  • Editing the macro

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

  • Use the top statistical, logical, date and text functions in Excel
  • Build VLOOKUP formulas with exact and approximate matches
  • Troubleshoot #N/A results with IFNA and IFERROR
  • Use HLOOKUP, INDEX and MATCH for more flexible lookups
  • Record, save and run macros in a macro-enabled workbook
  • View and edit recorded macros in VBA

WHO WILL BENEFIT?

  • Business owners
  • CEO's/CFO's/CTO's
  • Managers
  • Accountants
  • CPA's
  • Financial consultants
  • IT professionals
  • Auditors
  • Human Resource personnel
  • Bookkeepers
  • Marketers
  • Anybody with large amounts of Data
  • Anybody who uses Microsoft Excel on a regular basis, and wants to be more efficient and productive

A handful of functions, lookups and macros can save hours of manual work and make your spreadsheets perform better, whether you run a small business, work in an office or use Excel casually.

This workshop suits business owners, executives, managers, accountants and CPAs, financial consultants, auditors, bookkeepers, IT, HR and marketing staff, and anyone who works with large amounts of data in Excel.

Formulas and functions

  • Statistical functions including SUM, AVERAGE, MAX, MIN and COUNT
  • IF and its counterparts COUNTIF, SUMIF and AVERAGEIF
  • Calculating dates with TODAY and NOW
  • Text functions for imported data, including LEFT, RIGHT, LEN, TRIM and CONCATENATE

Lookup functions

  • The arguments in the VLOOKUP function
  • Why absolute references matter in lookup functions
  • Approximate matches with VLOOKUP
  • Simplifying multiple-field lookups with concatenation
  • Looking up data from another workbook
  • How VLOOKUP stops at the first match in a list
  • Why VLOOKUP sometimes returns #N/A
  • The IFNA function (Excel 2013 and later) and IFERROR for handling missing matches
  • Horizontal matches with HLOOKUP
  • Why INDEX and MATCH often beats VLOOKUP or HLOOKUP
  • Finding an item's position with MATCH

Macros

  • Workbook macros vs. personal macros
  • Making macros available to all your workbooks
  • Creating a macro with the macro recorder
  • Saving a file as a macro-enabled workbook
  • Running a macro
  • Viewing the recorded macro in VBA
  • Editing the macro
  • Use the top statistical, logical, date and text functions in Excel
  • Build VLOOKUP formulas with exact and approximate matches
  • Troubleshoot #N/A results with IFNA and IFERROR
  • Use HLOOKUP, INDEX and MATCH for more flexible lookups
  • Record, save and run macros in a macro-enabled workbook
  • View and edit recorded macros in VBA
  • Business owners
  • CEO's/CFO's/CTO's
  • Managers
  • Accountants
  • CPA's
  • Financial consultants
  • IT professionals
  • Auditors
  • Human Resource personnel
  • Bookkeepers
  • Marketers
  • Anybody with large amounts of Data
  • Anybody who uses Microsoft Excel on a regular basis, and wants to be more efficient and productive
Currency:
Webinar Option
Live + Recorded Session
Live + Transcript
Live + USB
Transcript (PDF Transcript of the Training)
Downloadable Recorded Session
USB
Group Session Participants + Recorded

Live Session with unlimited participants. Invite any number of attendees to join.

Speaker Profile

ins_img Cathy Horwitz

Cathy Horwitz is a highly experienced Microsoft Office instructor, specializing in Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access. With over 30 years of expertise in both in-person and online training, she has helped thousands of professionals boost productivity, streamline workflows, and master essential Microsoft Office skills.Cathy has been teaching Microsoft Office since its inception, offering tailored training programs that meet the unique needs of individuals and businesses. Her courses cover everything from Excel formulas, PivotTables, and automation with macros to Word document formatting, PowerPoint presentation design, and Outlook email management. Workshops from beginning level through advanced are available.Known for her engaging, …

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