Microsoft Excel Training
Eleven classes with similar names, and only one of them is yours. This page is about picking it.
- Since 1982 Training the business community
- 595 Dates on the schedule now
- 444 Courses in the catalog
Level 1 is not the class you think it is
Almost everybody who books Excel training has used Excel for years, and almost everybody assumes that rules out the first class. Then they sit in Level 2 and spend the day quietly lost, because the day rests on a handful of things Level 1 covers that nobody picks up on their own.
The gap is rarely the formulas. It is the shape of a spreadsheet: what a cell reference actually is, why the dollar signs matter and when to use them, what makes a range a table and why Excel treats it completely differently once it is one. Self taught users tend to need about a third of Level 1 badly and can sleep through the rest.
So the useful question is not whether you are a beginner. It is whether you could explain, right now, why a formula broke when you copied it down a column. If you cannot, start at Level 1 and you will get more out of Level 2 than the people who skipped it.
The sequence
Each level assumes the one before it. They are not four versions of the same class at different speeds, they are four different jobs.
Microsoft Excel Level 1 EXL-01
How a spreadsheet actually works: references, formatting, tables, printing something that looks deliberate. For people who use Excel without knowing why it does what it does.
- $295 per seat
- 8 upcoming dates
Microsoft Excel Level 2 EXL-02
The working day. Lookups, logical functions, sorting and filtering real data, and the first PivotTable. This is the class most people actually needed when they asked for advanced Excel.
- $295 per seat
- 9 upcoming dates
- 2 confirmed to run
Microsoft Excel Level 3 EXL-03
Analysis rather than entry. Deeper PivotTable work, what-if tools, and functions that operate on whole sets of data rather than single cells.
- $295 per seat
- 7 upcoming dates
Microsoft Excel Level 4 EXL-04
For people building things other people depend on. Automation, validation, and the structures that stop a workbook falling apart when somebody else opens it.
- $295 per seat
- 2 upcoming dates
- 1 confirmed to run
If you only take one, take Level 2. It is the class that changes how long your week takes.
If the formula bar is where you get stuck
This is a different problem from being new to Excel, and the levels are the wrong answer to it. Plenty of people are perfectly comfortable with the application, build tables and charts without thinking about it, and still stall the moment a formula needs to do something they have not copied from somewhere before. Nested IFs that half work. A lookup that returns the wrong row and no idea why. Functions they have heard of and never used because the arguments made no sense.
The levels teach Excel. This one teaches the formula language: what the function library actually contains, how the arguments fit together, and how to build up an expression that does what you meant rather than one that happens to return a number.
Microsoft Excel Functions & Formulas ISI-1533
The function library as a subject in its own right. Lookups, logic, text and date handling, and how to build a formula that survives being copied. For people who know their way around Excel and freeze at the formula bar.
- $350 per seat
- 2 upcoming dates
Take it instead of Level 3 if formulas are specifically where you lose time. Take Level 3 instead if the problem is analysis rather than syntax: PivotTables, what-if, summarizing a large set of data. Take both, in either order, if the honest answer is that it is a bit of each.
The specialist classes
These are not further up the ladder, they are off to the side. Each one goes deep on a single thing, and each assumes you already have Level 2 behind you.
Microsoft Excel PivotTables EXL-P
A full day on PivotTables alone. Worth it if reporting is most of your job and you have been building the same summary by hand every month.
- $185 per seat
- 8 upcoming dates
- 5 confirmed to run
Collect & Transform Data Using Power Query in Excel & Power BI ISI-1522
Cleaning and combining data that arrives messy. If you spend the first hour of every report fixing an export, this is the class that gives that hour back.
- $1,595 per seat
- 2 upcoming dates
Microsoft Excel VBA EXL-VBA
Writing macros properly, rather than recording one and hoping. For people automating a process that has to keep working when they are on holiday.
- $1,695 per seat
- 1 upcoming date
Power BI for Excel Users PBI-1
Turning a working spreadsheet into something a manager can read at a glance, without it becoming fragile.
- $1,195 per seat
- 3 upcoming dates
- 2 confirmed to run
One honest warning about the last two. Most people who ask for VBA want Power Query, and do not know it yet. If your problem is that the data arrives in the wrong shape every month, that is a Power Query problem, and solving it with a macro is more work that breaks more often. If your problem is a process with steps and decisions in it, that is VBA. Ask us if you are not sure which one you have.
Still not sure? Four questions
Answer honestly rather than optimistically. Nobody is marking this.
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Do you know what $A$1 does, and when you would want it?
No → Level 1
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Have you built a working VLOOKUP or XLOOKUP without help?
No, and Excel generally is a struggle → Level 2. No, but the rest of Excel is fine → Functions & Formulas
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Do you build the same report by hand more than once a month?
Yes → PivotTables, then Power Query
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Does somebody else’s workbook break when you edit it?
Yes → Level 4, or a conversation about how it is built
If two of those point in different directions, take the earlier one. Excel is one of the few subjects where going back a level is genuinely faster than going forward.
And if the honest answer is that Excel has stopped being the right tool, that is worth knowing too. Which Power BI course should I take covers what happens after the spreadsheet gets too big, and it is candid about when you do not need it yet.
The short version
- Never trained, uses it dailyLevel 1, and you will finish it faster than you expect
- Comfortable, slowLevel 2
- Fine in Excel, stuck at the formula barFunctions and Formulas
- Reports and analysisLevel 3, or PivotTables if that is the whole job
- Fighting the data before you startPower Query
- Automating a processVBA
- Building for other peopleLevel 4
Which version do these cover?
We teach the current desktop version of Excel for Microsoft 365. If your organization is on an older release, tell us when you book and we will say plainly which parts of the class will not match what you see, because for some of these courses the answer is almost none of it and for others it matters.
Excel for the web and Excel on a Mac are different enough in places to be worth mentioning too. Same answer: ask, and we will tell you before you pay rather than after.
Training a team
Above a handful of people, private delivery is usually cheaper than individual seats and it is better training, because the class can run on your own workbooks. An Excel class taught on the report your team actually produces is worth two taught on a sample file, and it tends to end with that report working better than it did before.
We deliver online or at your offices, six people for on site and four for virtual.
How our classes are delivered covers what a seat includes and how organizations buy them.
Frequently asked questions
Which Excel course should I take first?
Level 1, unless you can already explain what an absolute cell reference does and why a formula changes when you copy it. Most self taught users skip Level 1 and lose most of a day in Level 2 catching up on things it would have covered.
I have used Excel for years. Do I still need Level 1?
Probably about a third of it. Years of use teach you the parts of Excel you happen to have needed, and leave gaps in the parts you never met, which is why experienced users often struggle in Level 2 while genuine beginners keep up. If you would rather not sit the whole day, tell us what you can already do and we will say which level fits.
What is the difference between the Excel levels?
Level 1 is how a spreadsheet works. Level 2 is the working day: lookups, logic, filtering, a first PivotTable. Level 3 is analysis, with deeper PivotTable and what-if work. Level 4 is building workbooks other people rely on. Each assumes the one before it.
What is the difference between the Excel levels and the Functions and Formulas class?
The levels teach Excel as a whole, a stage at a time. Functions and Formulas teaches the formula language on its own: what the function library contains, how the arguments fit together, and how to build an expression that keeps working when it is copied. If you are comfortable in Excel generally and only stall when a formula gets complicated, that class is a better use of a day than the next level up.
Should I learn VBA or Power Query?
Power Query, in most cases. If your problem is data arriving in the wrong shape every month, Power Query solves it with less to maintain. VBA is the right answer when you are automating a process with steps and decisions in it rather than reshaping data.
How long does an Excel class take?
Each level is a short course rather than a week, and the length of every class is on its own page above, read from the schedule as it stands today. Most people take one level, use it for a few months, and come back for the next.
Do you teach Excel on our own spreadsheets?
Yes, for private classes. It is the main reason to run one: the day ends with your actual report working rather than a sample file working. Public classes use our material so that everybody in the room can follow it.
Still not sure which one?
Tell us what you are trying to do in Excel and we will tell you which class fits, including when the honest answer is an earlier one than you expected.