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The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration

Excel course for economists and policy analysts

Economists, policy analysts and economic researchers handling statistical series in Excel can use this guide to The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration. It selects percentages and absolute references for growth rates and index numbers, SUMIFS and PivotTables for summaries, charts for trends, Power Query to combine and reshape downloads, and WealthFlow for projections with inflation and explicit assumptions.

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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:

  • Use percentages to calculate growth rates and index numbers, keeping the base period fixed with an absolute reference.
  • Bring downloaded series from different sources into a long table in Power Query by importing CSV files, correcting data types, appending periods and unpivoting wide columns.
  • Prepare briefing summaries with SUMIFS and PivotTables that group results by period.
  • Show trends through time in line and combo charts, adding a secondary axis where series have different scales.
  • Make assumptions explicit in a projection, calculate FV and inflation-adjusted values, and check how the projection fares under tougher scenarios.

Projects

What you will build.

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

  • Power Query sales report in Excel (SalesFusion): sales by category, sales by region and a monthly trend, with slicers for channel, year, category and region.

    Project 12

    SalesFusion

    A sales report that refreshes itself from a folder of files.

    Build a long table from downloads across sources: import CSVs, set their data types, stack periods using Append and unpivot wide columns. Combine the files in a folder in a single step.

  • SIP and SWP retirement simulator in Excel (WealthFlow): withdrawal and investment plans beside four charts of corpus, withdrawals and portfolio growth over 30 years.

    Project 10

    WealthFlow

    A retirement plan that shows how long the money lasts.

    Start with explicit assumptions, then examine the projection under stress scenarios. Use FV for compound growth, adjust values for inflation and calculate a rate of return with XIRR.

  • Nine Excel chart types from the Marketing Engagement Dashboard: combo, bar, funnel, Pareto, waterfall, histogram, box and whisker, sunburst and treemap.

    Project 04

    Marketing Engagement Dashboard

    Nine charts, each picked for the question it answers.

    Present time series with line charts that show trends and sparklines alongside a table. Use a combo chart and secondary axis to display measures with different scales.

Lessons

The lessons that matter, in course order.

The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration has 186 lessons. This page picks out 57 of them, 5 h of video. Each lesson keeps its number in the course.

Where to start

Lesson 10 Relative vs absolute references in Excel

If entering data and writing a simple formula are familiar, start at Lesson 10 for the absolute references and percentages behind growth rates. Beginners should start at Lesson 1. If you already use formulas and charts routinely, start WealthFlow at Lesson 125 or Power Query at Lesson 153.

57 of 186 lessons · 5 h

01 Microsoft Excel fundamentals: building a foundation from scratch 2 of 13 lessons · 6 min Learn how an absolute reference holds a formula to its base period when copied down, and how percentages express each expense as a share of income. These provide the foundations for growth rates and index numbers.
  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) 4 of 13 lessons · 25 min Using sales data, practise SUMIF and SUMIFS to prepare briefing summaries by region or period, and COUNTIFS to count records. MONTH and date arithmetic help translate dates into reporting periods.
  1. 36 SUMIF and COUNTIF in Excel Conditional sum and count with one criterion 8 min
  2. 37 SUMIFS and COUNTIFS in Excel Sum and count with multiple criteria 7 min
  3. 38 The Excel function library Insert Function dialog and Formula AutoComplete 5 min
  4. 39 Date and time functions in Excel TODAY, NOW, MONTH and date arithmetic 6 min
06 Data visualisation: charts and graphs 9 lessons · 45 min Display change over time with line charts, combo charts and a secondary axis, and make briefing charts clear with titles and labels. Sparklines show trends, while histograms and box and whisker charts show distributions and spread.
  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
  4. 51 Pie charts in Excel Show proportions and parts of a whole 4 min
  5. 52 Combo charts in Excel Column and line chart with a secondary axis 4 min
  6. 53 Formatting charts in Excel Titles, data labels, colours and chart styles 7 min
  7. 54 Sparklines in Excel Line, column and win-loss mini charts in cells 5 min
  8. 55 Funnel, Pareto and waterfall charts in Excel Modern charts for business data 5 min
  9. 56 Histogram, box and whisker, treemap and sunburst Advanced Excel chart types 6 min
07 PivotTables and PivotCharts: data analysis made easy 10 lessons · 33 min Summarise long statistical tables across regions, categories and periods with PivotTables, including date grouping, slicers and PivotCharts. Sales data supplies the examples in these lessons.
  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
13 WealthFlow investment and retirement simulator 11 lessons · 1 h 5 min A block of input assumptions drives WealthFlow's personal investment and retirement model. Work through FV compounding, converting an annual rate to a monthly rate, XIRR, inflation-adjusted real values, withdrawals and a stress test.
  1. 125 SIP and SWP calculators What is an SIP, lump sum and compounding 6 min
  2. 126 SIP and SWP calculators What is an SWP, inflation and FIRE 6 min
  3. 127 WealthFlow SIP model in Excel Input assumptions, XIRR and monthly rate 6 min
  4. 128 WealthFlow SIP model in Excel Step-up SIP table and FV formulas 6 min
  5. 129 WealthFlow SIP model in Excel Real portfolio value, inflation and charts 7 min
  6. 130 WealthFlow SWP model in Excel Real rate, corpus and yearly withdrawals 6 min
  7. 131 WealthFlow SWP model in Excel Real corpus, stress test and SWP chart 5 min
  8. 132 Retirement simulator in Excel WealthFlow inputs, year and age columns 5 min
  9. 133 Retirement simulator in Excel SIP, withdrawal and portfolio formulas with IF 7 min
  10. 134 Retirement simulator in Excel Reading the results and retirement scenarios 5 min
  11. 135 Retirement simulator in Excel Claude builds the WealthFlow dashboard 5 min
15 SalesFusion: advanced data tools and a Power Query modelling system 21 lessons · 2 h 7 min In SalesFusion, turn CSV downloads into a long table with Power Query: correct data types, create year and month columns, append periods, combine files from a folder and unpivot wide columns. The lessons on the Power Pivot data model and DAX midway through this material require Excel for Windows.
  1. 153 SalesFusion Power Query project Excel ETL pipeline and data model overview 5 min
  2. 154 Introduction to Power Query in Excel The ETL workflow explained 5 min
  3. 155 Import a CSV with Power Query Get data from text and transform data 2 min
  4. 156 Clean columns in Power Query Remove and rename columns for modelling 5 min
  5. 157 Clean text in Power Query Trim, clean, replace values and fix text case 6 min
  6. 158 Data types in Power Query Fix date, whole number, decimal and text types 7 min
  7. 159 Date columns in Power Query Add year, month and year-month fields for reports 7 min
  8. 160 Business logic in Power Query Custom and conditional columns for profitability 6 min
  9. 161 Group By in Power Query Summarise sales by month and region to validate data 5 min
  10. 162 Close and Load in Power Query Connection only, table or Data Model 5 min
  11. 163 Merge queries in Power Query Look up product and region names with a left join 5 min
  12. 164 Reuse a Power Query pipeline Duplicate queries for a new year of sales data 5 min
  13. 165 Append queries in Power Query Combine 2024 and 2025 sales tables 3 min
  14. 166 From Folder in Power Query Combine every sales file in a folder automatically 9 min
  15. 167 From Folder automation in Power Query Profit metrics and fiscal year columns 7 min
  16. 168 Build a sales fact table in Power Query Merge lookups and append history 6 min
  17. 169 Power Pivot Data Model in Excel Relationships and Diagram View 6 min
  18. 170 DAX measures in Power Pivot Total sales, margin percent and percent of total 10 min
  19. 171 PivotTable report from the Data Model Format the SalesFusion report in Excel 5 min
  20. 172 Interactive Excel dashboard Data model PivotTables, slicers and styling 10 min
  21. 173 Unpivot columns in Power Query Turn wide month columns into a long table 8 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 covers work done by economists and policy analysts?

The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration from Coding Liquids covers Excel tasks used in economic and policy work. These include growth rates and index numbers, combining and reshaping downloads with Power Query, line and combo charts, and SUMIFS and PivotTable summaries. WealthFlow covers projections with FV, inflation and stress tests. The selection on this page contains 57 lessons, taking 5 hours out of the course's 16 hours.

Does this course cover regression or econometrics for economists?

No. Econometrics, regression, statistical tests and Solver are not taught in The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration. Its lessons address the surrounding Excel tasks: assembling series from separate downloads into a clean table, calculating growth and index numbers, showing trends in charts and building scenarios from explicit assumptions.

Can an economist learn to adjust figures for inflation with this course?

Yes. WealthFlow in The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration uses an inflation rate to convert nominal values to real values, includes a real rate of return, and uses FV for compounding before testing tougher scenarios. The example models personal investment and retirement; the arithmetic also applies when deflating a wages or spending series.

Can policy analysts use Power Query to reshape downloads from statistics websites?

Yes, in common cases. The Power Query lessons in The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration use sales files to demonstrate importing CSVs, correcting data types, stacking periods with Append and combining downloads from a folder. Unpivoting converts wide columns into a long table suitable for PivotTables and charts.

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.

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