Whenever asked about my computer skills and experience with Microsoft Office software, I am always quick to declare myself an Excel Wizard. Wingardium Leviosa! Alohomora! Expecto Patronum! Well, not that kind of wizard, just a person who is very good with spreadsheets. And I'm pretty sure they don't teach a computer course at Hogwarts.
My expertise with Excel developed when I worked as an accounting assistant/job cost accountant during the year in between undergrad and grad school. I utilized the program to track budgets, create invoices, assemble bills, and make lists. I took everything I learned of formulas and worksheets at my job and began utilizing them at home to track my personal budget and all my savings for grad school. Once I began school, my skills were once again called upon when I was elected to serve as Treasurer for the student exhibition team. I would like to boast about some of my cap feathers at this point and say that not only did we complete our project on budget, but I also successfully obtained some extra grant funding for our group and handled all of that paperwork as well. During an internship, I used Excel to create a detailed inventory list of a collections storage room and included a column of cells that contained thumbnail images of the artifacts. Now I utilize Excel in the gift shop at Laumeier Sculpture Park, creating spreadsheets to input visitor survey data and then using those to produce pages with statistics and graphs. These statistics are super helpful when it's time to apply for grants. We also use it to enter membership information and to keep track of our iPod rentals.
Excel has been a very important tool of mine for the last couple of years and there is a very good reason for this: Excel is a super useful tool for museums. It is clear from the paragraph above that it can be utilized for a number of different things by any department. So I just wanted to share some of the things that I have picked up along the way:
1.) First, if you are trying to figure out what formula you need or how to enter it, Microsoft has a great webpage with helpful tips called Examples of Commonly used Formulas. Hitting the question mark on the Menu bar also opens a window with links to info on formulas and tables.
2.) Remember there are three ways to enter any given Excel formula - select from drop down options on the Menu, manually type, or just copy and paste/drag from another cell.
3.) If your numbers do not add up correctly and you know all the data was entered right, then the problem is one of the formulas. Sometimes this occurs because you copied or dragged a formula; the program will automatically start ascending numerals (counting upwards) from your original number. Because of this, I often find it is best to manually type in all the formulas the first time I create any spreadsheet, just to make sure they are correct.
4.) Excel is very expansive with all its columns, rows, and cells, but it still has its limitations, and sometimes you just have to get creative.
5.) Interlinked multiple spreadsheets, instead of having all your information on just one sheet, it much more organized and a huge time saver.
6.) While you can include high resolution images in a spreadsheet, it is best to keep them low resolution so the file size is smaller.
7.) Excel can be used as a collections database, but Microsoft Access is better for this.
8.) Most museum database programs are already designed to import and export data from spreadsheets.
9.) Pie charts are the best (and I'm not just saying that cause I like pie).
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