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The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration

Excel course for planning engineers

For planning engineers who measure progress and report against the programme in Excel. The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration teaches Excel, not planning software; this page picks out the lessons a progress report is built from: percentages and conditional totals for weighted progress, line and combo charts for S-curves, PivotTables for manpower, lookups against the baseline, look-ahead lists with FILTER, and the TaskFlow tracker with its Gantt-style timeline.

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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:

  • Measure weighted progress: activity weights as percentages of the total, earned progress in a helper column, and totals by area or discipline with SUMIFS.
  • Plot planned against actual S-curves with line charts, or weekly progress as columns under a cumulative line in a combo chart.
  • Draw a Gantt-style timeline with conditional formatting, with status drop-downs and late activities in colour.
  • List the activities starting in the coming weeks with FILTER and SORTBY, and count the working days to each start with NETWORKDAYS.
  • Total manpower and equipment by trade and week with PivotTables grouped by date, and chart manpower by week in columns.
  • Count delays by cause with COUNTIFS and show the main causes in a Pareto chart.

Projects

What you will build.

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

  • 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.

    Built for tasks, it draws a look-ahead as bars across the weeks: each activity with a status, a start and a finish, and the late ones in colour.

  • 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.

    The planner's charts: lines for S-curves, columns for manpower by week, a combo for progress against plan, and a Pareto of delays.

  • 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.

    Daily resource returns turned into manpower by trade and week, with slicers for one area or one subcontractor.

  • XLOOKUP formula in Excel (PeopleInsight): each employee row looks up its location from another sheet.

    Project 06

    PeopleInsight HR workbook

    Employee data joined across sheets with one formula.

    Baseline dates and budget hours fetched by activity ID, and look-ahead lists that update when the dates change.

Lessons

The lessons that matter, in course order.

The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration has 186 lessons. This page picks out 49 of them, 3 h 50 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: weighted progress starts with percentages and fixed references. New to Excel? Begin at Lesson 1. If SUMIFS and charts are familiar, go to Lesson 74 for look-ahead lists, or to Lesson 79, where TaskFlow and its timeline begin.

49 of 186 lessons · 3 h 50 min

01 Microsoft Excel fundamentals: building a foundation from scratch 2 of 13 lessons · 6 min Absolute references and percentages: each activity's weight as a share of the total, held against one total cell. 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) 12 of 13 lessons · 1 h 9 min IF to flag an activity behind its planned percentage, AND and OR for two conditions, SUM, SUMIFS and COUNTIFS for progress, manpower and delays by area, trade and week, and date functions for cut-off dates. The lessons use sales figures.
  1. 28 Logical functions in Excel TRUE and FALSE comparisons for beginners 5 min
  2. 29 The IF function in Excel Pass or fail results with a single condition 3 min
  3. 30 IF function practice in Excel Categorise sales data with IF formulas 6 min
  4. 31 Nested IF and IFS in Excel Customer value tiers with nested IF 6 min
  5. 32 Nested IF and IFS in Excel Sales performance labels with the IFS function 5 min
  6. 33 AND and OR with IF in Excel Flag high-value deals with multiple conditions 8 min
  7. 34 SUM, COUNT and COUNTA in Excel SUM with FILTER and counting numbers with COUNT 7 min
  8. 35 SUM, COUNT and COUNTA in Excel COUNTA, unique counts and completeness checks 4 min
  9. 36 SUMIF and COUNTIF in Excel Conditional sum and count with one criterion 8 min
  10. 37 SUMIFS and COUNTIFS in Excel Sum and count with multiple criteria 7 min
  11. 38 The Excel function library Insert Function dialog and Formula AutoComplete 5 min
  12. 39 Date and time functions in Excel TODAY, NOW, MONTH and date arithmetic 6 min
06 Data visualisation: charts and graphs 6 of 9 lessons · 28 min The charts of a progress report: column charts for weekly quantities and manpower, line charts for S-curves, combo charts with a secondary axis, and formatting fit for a monthly report.
  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
06 Data visualisation: charts and graphs 1 of 9 lessons · 5 min The Pareto chart, used here for delay causes in order with their cumulative share.
  1. 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 over daily resource returns: manpower and equipment by trade and week, 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
08 Advanced Excel functions: lookups, text and arrays 5 of 12 lessons · 21 min XLOOKUP and INDEX and MATCH bring baseline dates or budget hours onto the progress sheet by activity ID, with IFERROR for an ID missing from the baseline. The lessons use HR data.
  1. 67 Lookup functions in Excel The PeopleInsight HR dataset and why lookups matter 2 min
  2. 68 VLOOKUP in Excel Find employee data across sheets with exact match 4 min
  3. 69 XLOOKUP in Excel Exact match, if not found and two-way lookup 6 min
  4. 70 IFERROR in Excel Handle lookup errors in VLOOKUP and XLOOKUP formulas 3 min
  5. 71 INDEX and MATCH in Excel A flexible alternative to VLOOKUP 6 min
08 Advanced Excel functions: lookups, text and arrays 4 of 12 lessons · 20 min NETWORKDAYS and EOMONTH for working days and cut-off dates, then UNIQUE, FILTER and SORTBY to list the activities starting in a given window, in start order.
  1. 74 TODAY, EOMONTH and NETWORKDAYS in Excel Date calculations for HR data 5 min
  2. 75 UNIQUE function in Excel Extract a distinct list with dynamic arrays 6 min
  3. 76 FILTER function in Excel Dynamic array filtering with AND and OR criteria 5 min
  4. 77 SORT and SORTBY in Excel Sort data dynamically with formulas 4 min
09 Project: task automation with data validation and forms 9 lessons · 49 min TaskFlow and its Gantt-style timeline drawn with conditional formatting: status and priority drop-downs, late activities highlighted, working days left and a protected sheet. Built for tasks, it suits a look-ahead programme.
  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

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.

Is there an Excel course for planning engineers?

Yes. The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration from Coding Liquids teaches the Excel a planning engineer reports with: weighted progress with percentages and SUMIFS, planned against actual S-curves in line and combo charts, a Gantt-style timeline in the TaskFlow project, a look-ahead list with FILTER and SORTBY, manpower by trade and week in PivotTables, and delay causes in a Pareto chart. The 49 lessons on this page take 3 hours 50 minutes.

Can I draw an S-curve of planned against actual progress?

Yes, from the chart lessons of The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration. Turn weekly percentages into cumulative ones with a running SUM, plot planned and actual as two lines, or use a combo chart with weekly progress as columns and the cumulative curve on a secondary axis. The formatting lessons add titles, labels and colours for the monthly report. No lesson draws an S-curve as such; the lessons chart sales and marketing figures.

Does it replace Primavera P6 or MS Project?

No. The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration teaches Excel; Primavera P6, MS Project, the critical path method and earned value management are not taught, and its Gantt-style timeline does not calculate a critical path. The course serves the work around the programme: progress measurement, S-curves, look-ahead lists, manpower tables and the figures for the monthly report, often from a schedule exported to Excel.

How do I build a three-week look-ahead from the programme?

Export the activities to Excel and use the dynamic arrays in The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration: FILTER with two date conditions lists the activities starting between today and three weeks ahead, SORTBY puts them in start order, and NETWORKDAYS counts the working days to each start. The TaskFlow lessons add status drop-downs, colour for anything late and a Gantt-style bar for each activity.

How do I measure weighted progress across activities?

With the percentage and conditional total lessons in The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration. Give each activity a weight as its share of the total budget hours, hold that total in one cell with an absolute reference, multiply each weight by its percent complete in a helper column, and add the results with SUM for the project or SUMIFS by area or discipline. IF flags an activity behind its planned percentage. No lesson teaches weighted progress as such.

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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