Start learning
My learning

The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration

Excel course for construction managers

For construction project managers who report cost, progress and open items in Excel. The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration has no construction data of its own; this page picks out the lessons a project report is built from: FinanceGuard for cost against budget, conditional totals for payments and variations, charts for progress and forecast, TaskFlow for RFI, submittal and snag logs, and the AI lessons for summarising long logs.

See the plans Watch free lessons

Taught by Sagnik Bhattacharya and Virginia Thorn

The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration: Sagnik Bhattacharya and Virginia Thorn

What you will be able to do

At work, you will be able to:

  • Report cost against budget by package with variance and percent variance, overruns coloured by custom number formats, on a dashboard with KPI cards and slicers.
  • Keep a register of subcontractor payments, retentions and variations, with retention worked out as a percentage and totals by subcontractor and status from SUMIFS.
  • Show progress against plan with line and combo charts, and the move from budget to forecast final cost with a waterfall chart.
  • Keep RFI, submittal and snag logs with owners, due dates, status drop-downs and overdue items in colour.
  • Total costs, hours or open items by package and month with PivotTables, slicers and PivotCharts.
  • Ask Copilot for a summary of a long log or a list of suspect rows, then check the answer with a short checklist before it reaches a report.

Projects

What you will build.

The course has 14 projects. These five matter most here.

  • Budget vs actual dashboard in Excel (FinanceGuard): total budget, actuals and variance cards above a monthly line chart and a column chart by department.

    Project 09

    FinanceGuard

    The budget vs actual report finance teams send every month.

    A package-by-package cost report for the monthly meeting: overruns in colour, a combo chart of budget against cost, slicers for each package.

  • Task tracker in Excel (TaskFlow): start and due dates, status, priority and a progress bar for each task, with working days left, days past due and unfinished high-priority tasks highlighted.

    Project 07

    TaskFlow

    One sheet that shows what is done, what is late and what is urgent.

    A task tracker used for RFIs, submittals and snags, each with an owner and a due date, the overdue ones coloured and the working days left counted.

  • Claude AI in Excel fixing a formula: the Claude panel explains the mistake in a unit cost column and edits the cells, beside the profit percentage column.

    Project 14

    Agentic AI in Excel

    AI finds and fixes the formula; you check it before it counts.

    A first read of a long snag list or cost table from Copilot, with a checklist that decides what is fit to report.

  • Excel PivotTables and a PivotChart of sales data (SalesPlusPerformance): net sales by product category as a column chart, with State, Region and City filters.

    Project 05

    SalesPlusPerformance

    A sales question answered in seconds, straight from the order data.

    Cost or open items by package, trade and month, grouped the way the course groups orders, with slicers to show one package.

  • Project 03

    Sales Goal Tracker

    SUMIFS and IF on a payment register: paid, retained and approved amounts by subcontractor, and variations still pending.

Lessons

The lessons that matter, in course order.

The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration has 186 lessons. This page picks out 55 of them, 4 h 26 min of video. Each lesson keeps its number in the course.

Where to start

Lesson 10 Relative vs absolute references in Excel

Begin at Lesson 10 if you can enter data and total a column: retention and the payment register start with fixed references and percentages. New to Excel? Begin at Lesson 1. If SUMIFS and PivotTables are familiar, go to Lesson 115 for the cost report, or to Lesson 79 for site logs, where the task tracker begins.

55 of 186 lessons · 4 h 26 min

01 Microsoft Excel fundamentals: building a foundation from scratch 2 of 13 lessons · 6 min Absolute references and percentages: a retention rate held in one cell and applied to each valuation. The lessons build a personal budget.
  1. 10 Start here Relative vs absolute references in Excel Dollar signs and mixed references 3 min
  2. 11 Calculating percentages in Excel Each expense as a percentage of income 2 min
04 Essential formulas and functions (IF, SUMIF and more) 9 of 13 lessons · 53 min IF and IFS to label a variation approved, pending or rejected, AND and OR for a payment that must meet two conditions, then SUMIF, SUMIFS, COUNTIF and COUNTIFS to total payments and count open items by subcontractor and status. The lessons use sales figures.
  1. 29 The IF function in Excel Pass or fail results with a single condition 3 min
  2. 30 IF function practice in Excel Categorise sales data with IF formulas 6 min
  3. 31 Nested IF and IFS in Excel Customer value tiers with nested IF 6 min
  4. 32 Nested IF and IFS in Excel Sales performance labels with the IFS function 5 min
  5. 33 AND and OR with IF in Excel Flag high-value deals with multiple conditions 8 min
  6. 34 SUM, COUNT and COUNTA in Excel SUM with FILTER and counting numbers with COUNT 7 min
  7. 35 SUM, COUNT and COUNTA in Excel COUNTA, unique counts and completeness checks 4 min
  8. 36 SUMIF and COUNTIF in Excel Conditional sum and count with one criterion 8 min
  9. 37 SUMIFS and COUNTIFS in Excel Sum and count with multiple criteria 7 min
06 Data visualisation: charts and graphs 3 of 9 lessons · 13 min Choosing a chart, column charts for cost by package, and a line chart for progress against plan over the months.
  1. 48 Choosing the right Excel chart Column, line, pie, combo and modern chart types 4 min
  2. 49 Column charts in Excel Insert, format and label a column chart 5 min
  3. 50 Line charts in Excel Show trends over time with a line chart 4 min
06 Data visualisation: charts and graphs 4 of 9 lessons · 21 min Combo charts with a secondary axis, chart formatting, sparklines, and the waterfall chart that walks from the budget through variations to the forecast final cost.
  1. 52 Combo charts in Excel Column and line chart with a secondary axis 4 min
  2. 53 Formatting charts in Excel Titles, data labels, colours and chart styles 7 min
  3. 54 Sparklines in Excel Line, column and win-loss mini charts in cells 5 min
  4. 55 Funnel, Pareto and waterfall charts in Excel Modern charts for business data 5 min
07 PivotTables and PivotCharts: data analysis made easy 10 lessons · 33 min PivotTables for a cost ledger or a log: totals by package, trade and month, grouping by date, slicers and PivotCharts. The lessons use sales orders.
  1. 57 PivotTables 101 in Excel What a PivotTable does and the sales dataset 5 min
  2. 58 Preparing data for PivotTables Clean data with TRIM, PROPER, find and replace 5 min
  3. 59 Create your first PivotTable in Excel Insert a PivotTable from a sales table 1 min
  4. 60 PivotTable fields in Excel Rows, values, columns and Value Field Settings 2 min
  5. 61 PivotTable summaries in Excel Sales by product category and grouping by date 4 min
  6. 62 Slicers in Excel Filter PivotTables with clickable buttons 3 min
  7. 63 PivotCharts in Excel Create interactive charts from a PivotTable 5 min
  8. 64 PivotTable design Tab Report layouts, PivotTable styles and number formats 5 min
  9. 65 Refresh a PivotTable in Excel Update pivots when source data changes 2 min
  10. 66 Excel Ninja Challenge PivotTable sales by region, category and monthly trend 1 min
09 Project: task automation with data validation and forms 9 lessons · 49 min TaskFlow, the base for RFI, submittal and snag logs: status and priority drop-downs, overdue items highlighted, a Gantt-style timeline, working days left and a protected sheet.
  1. 79 TaskFlow project tracker in Excel Overview of the task tracker dashboard 4 min
  2. 80 Designing a task tracker in Excel TaskFlow layout, columns and headers 5 min
  3. 81 Data validation in Excel Status and priority drop-down lists in TaskFlow 8 min
  4. 82 Conditional formatting in Excel Highlight overdue and completed tasks 8 min
  5. 83 Gantt chart in Excel Build a project timeline with conditional formatting 6 min
  6. 84 Data bars and icon sets in Excel Visual priority and progress in TaskFlow 6 min
  7. 85 NETWORKDAYS and TODAY in Excel Days remaining and task deadlines in TaskFlow 5 min
  8. 86 Protect a sheet and lock cells in Excel Secure the TaskFlow tracker workbook 4 min
  9. 87 Testing an Excel task tracker Stress test TaskFlow with sample data 3 min
10 Boosting productivity with AI in Excel (Copilot, ChatGPT and Claude) 4 of 17 lessons · 23 min What Copilot, ChatGPT and Claude can and cannot do, how to set out a table for them, a summary of a long dataset, and prompts that ask clearly for what you need.
  1. 88 AI in Excel What Copilot, ChatGPT and Claude can and cannot do 8 min
  2. 89 Prepare data for Copilot in Excel Tables, headers and clean structure 6 min
  3. 90 Copilot executive summary in Excel Summarise a dataset in seconds with AI 5 min
  4. 91 Copilot prompts for Excel Weak vs strong prompts and the PRO prompt pattern 5 min
10 Boosting productivity with AI in Excel (Copilot, ChatGPT and Claude) 4 of 17 lessons · 16 min Copilot finds suspect rows, cleans messy entries and drafts a mini dashboard, and a QA checklist decides what can be trusted before it goes into a report.
  1. 96 Find outliers with Copilot in Excel Discounts, negative profit, suspect rows 7 min
  2. 97 Clean messy data with Copilot in Excel AI prompts plus Excel functions 4 min
  3. 98 Mini dashboard with Copilot in Excel KPIs, charts and slicers on one page 3 min
  4. 99 Check AI output in Excel A quick QA checklist for Copilot results 2 min
12 Project: FinanceGuard budget variance analyser (budget vs actual Excel dashboard) 10 lessons · 52 min FinanceGuard, read as the monthly cost report: budget and actual tables, a SUMIFS model, variance and percent variance by package, colour-coded number formats, KPI cards, a combo chart and slicers.
  1. 115 FinanceGuard budget vs actual dashboard Excel project overview 3 min
  2. 116 Excel tables for budget and actual data Organise the FinanceGuard datasets 4 min
  3. 117 Budget vs actual model in Excel SORT, UNIQUE, VSTACK, LET, TEXTSPLIT, SUMIFS 8 min
  4. 118 Budget variance in Excel Calculate variance and percent variance 4 min
  5. 119 Custom number formats in Excel Show budget variances with colours and signs 2 min
  6. 120 PivotTables for budget vs actual The FinanceGuard pivot workspace 8 min
  7. 121 KPI cards in Excel Summary cards for a budget variance dashboard 4 min
  8. 122 Budget vs actual charts in Excel Combo chart with secondary axis for variance 5 min
  9. 123 Slicers and PivotCharts in Excel Interactive FinanceGuard budget dashboard 4 min
  10. 124 Finish the FinanceGuard dashboard in Excel Final polish and variance insights 10 min

Instructors

Who teaches it.

Virginia Thorn smiling at the camera, dark hair tied back, wearing a navy top.

Instructor, Excel with AI

Virginia Thorn

Emmy Award winner. Teaches Excel with AI at Coding Liquids.

Questions

Asked before starting.

Which Excel course fits construction project managers?

The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration from Coding Liquids fits the reporting side of the job: FinanceGuard for cost against budget by package, SUMIFS for payments, retentions and variations, line and combo charts for progress, a waterfall chart from budget to forecast, TaskFlow for RFI, submittal and snag logs, and Copilot summaries you check before use. The 55 lessons picked out here take 4 hours 26 minutes.

Can I build a monthly cost report by package in Excel?

Yes. FinanceGuard in The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration builds one from a budget table and an actuals table: SUMIFS totals by category, variance and percent variance, custom number formats that colour an overrun, then KPI cards, a combo chart and slicers on one dashboard. Use your packages as the categories; a forecast cost to complete is a column you add from your own estimate.

Does it teach Primavera, MS Project or earned value?

No. The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration teaches Excel. Primavera and MS Project scheduling, earned value management and contract administration are not taught. It covers the Excel behind the workbooks a project team keeps beside them: the cost report, the register of payments and variations, the RFI and snag logs, and the monthly dashboard.

Can AI summarise a long snag list or RFI log for me?

It can draft the summary. The AI lessons of The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration show how to set out a table for Copilot, write a prompt that asks for what you need, get an executive summary of a dataset, find rows that look wrong, and test the answer with a short checklist before it goes into a report. Asking it for the overdue items works the same way, and needs the same check.

How do I keep subcontractor payments, retentions and variations in one register?

Keep one row per payment or variation, and The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration supplies the formulas: retention as a percentage held in one cell with an absolute reference, SUMIFS for paid, retained and approved amounts by subcontractor, IF and IFS to mark a variation still awaiting approval, and a PivotTable to total the register by package. The lessons use sales data.

Excel with AI

See the whole course.

The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration: 16 hours of video in 186 lessons, built around 14 projects, with lifetime access, a Certificate of Completion and a 14-day money-back guarantee.

See the plans Watch free lessons

The same course

For another job, level or topic.

By job

Finance and accounting
HR and office administration
Operations and supply chain
Data and reporting
Sales, marketing and customer service
Business and management
Engineering, construction and manufacturing
Retail, property and hospitality
Healthcare and life sciences
Education and careers
Public sector, non-profit and legal
Technology

By level and topic