Start learning
My learning

The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration

Excel course for production planners

For production planners using Excel to prepare weekly plans and follow factory orders, The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration contains no production dataset. This guide selects lessons on lookups for material checks, conditional totals for line load, combo charts for load against capacity, the TaskFlow tracker and its Gantt-style timeline, and Power Query for order exports.

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:

  • Arrange a weekly plan by production line, using SUMIFS and a PivotTable to total planned hours for each line and week.
  • Express machine or line load as a percentage of capacity, highlight overloads with colour and compare load with capacity in a combo chart.
  • Use XLOOKUP to add stock and required quantities to the plan, then mark material shortages with IF.
  • Follow production orders with status drop-downs, highlight those running late and use NETWORKDAYS to count working days until each due date.
  • Create a Gantt-style view of the plan by applying conditional formatting to a timeline.
  • Import and clean ERP order exports in Power Query, merge in product details and use Group By to total hours for each line.

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.

    Give each production order a bar spanning its start and due dates, choose its status from a drop-down, highlight lateness and count the working days remaining.

  • 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.

    Use a part number in place of an employee ID to retrieve stock on hand or a component quantity for the plan through a single formula.

  • 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.

    Prepare ERP order exports for the plan with Power Query cleaning and summaries, replacing the weekly copying and pasting of export data.

  • Project 03

    Sales Goal Tracker

    Apply the calculations to planning: count orders in each status with COUNTIFS, total line and week hours with SUMIFS, and use IF with AND for checks on short or late orders.

Lessons

The lessons that matter, in course order.

The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration has 186 lessons. This page picks out 53 of them, 4 h 22 min of video. Each lesson keeps its number in the course.

Where to start

Lesson 28 Logical functions in Excel

If entering data and totalling a column are familiar, start with Lesson 28 to build planning checks from IF and SUMIFS. For a first introduction to Excel, choose Lesson 1. Planners already comfortable with SUMIFS and PivotTables can begin TaskFlow and its timeline at Lesson 79, or start Power Query at Lesson 153.

53 of 186 lessons · 4 h 22 min

04 Essential formulas and functions (IF, SUMIF and more) 13 lessons · 1 h 17 min Adapt the sales examples to planning rows: total hours by line and week with SUMIF and SUMIFS, count order statuses with COUNTIFS, and calculate start and finish dates with date arithmetic. IF and AND provide checks for orders with material shortages or missed dates.
  1. 28 Start here 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
  13. 40 Excel Ninja Challenge COUNTIF, SUMIF, IF, COUNTIFS, SUMIFS and IFS practice 8 min
06 Data visualisation: charts and graphs 1 of 9 lessons · 4 min Compare load columns with a capacity line in a combo chart. Where their scales differ, use a secondary axis.
  1. 52 Combo charts in Excel Column and line chart with a secondary axis 4 min
07 PivotTables and PivotCharts: data analysis made easy 10 lessons · 33 min Turn an order list into PivotTable summaries of hours and quantities by product, line and week. The sales-order examples cover date grouping, slicers and PivotCharts.
  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 Match part numbers to stock on hand or component quantities using XLOOKUP, VLOOKUP or INDEX and MATCH, then bring the results into the plan. Handle parts absent from the lookup list with IFERROR.
  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 Count working days until an order is due with NETWORKDAYS. Use UNIQUE, FILTER, SORT and SORTBY to produce a list of orders for a chosen line, arranged by due date.
  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 Adapt TaskFlow's task tracker to production orders with start and due dates. It combines status and priority drop-downs, highlighted late items, a Gantt-style timeline made with conditional formatting, progress data bars, remaining days calculated with NETWORKDAYS and TODAY, and sheet protection.
  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
15 SalesFusion: advanced data tools and a Power Query modelling system 11 of 21 lessons · 58 min Prepare an ERP order CSV in Power Query by importing it, cleaning text and columns, correcting data types and adding year, month and conditional columns. Use Group By for hours by line and a left-join merge to attach product details.
  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

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 can production planners use?

The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration from Coding Liquids covers spreadsheet work that production planners can apply, though it is not a production planning course. Its practice files use sales, HR and task data. Relevant work includes XLOOKUP material checks by part number, SUMIFS totals of hours by line and week, load and capacity combo charts, and TaskFlow's Gantt-style timeline. This guide selects 53 lessons, taking 4 hours 22 minutes.

Can a production planner make an Excel production schedule with a Gantt chart?

Yes. In The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration, TaskFlow uses conditional formatting to create a Gantt-style timeline alongside status drop-downs, coloured late items and a working-days-remaining count. Enter start and due dates for production orders to display them as bars. The timeline visualises the plan; it does not schedule or sequence the orders.

Can production planners use this course to compare machine load and capacity?

Yes, for the Excel calculations and presentation. The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration covers the tools: SUMIFS to total planned hours by line and week, division to express load as a percentage of capacity, conditional formatting to highlight overloads and a combo chart to compare load with capacity. The planner must provide capacity figures and routing times.

Will production planners learn MRP or finite scheduling here?

No. The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration covers Excel rather than production planning methods: it does not teach MRP, ERP planning, finite scheduling or capacity optimisation. Its tools work with data after a planning system or ERP exports it to Excel or a CSV file.

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