Five functions every data analyst should know

Among various data analysis tools used worldwide, Excel remains the most favored position among analysts. All credit goes to the functions, formulas, tricks, and shortcuts that make it easier for analysts to come to conclusions.

If you are a data expert and you use Excel repeatedly, here are five functions of Excel that every data analyst must know:

Five functions every data analyst should know

• Pivot tables in Excel

Pivot tables are the most effective way of summarizing and analyzing data. To be a data analyst, you must be good to go with pivot tables. Pivot makes the function of analyzing data easier and is time-saving. Just drag and drop fields to columns rows and make calculations accordingly. Pivot tables can be inserted using the shortcut ALT+N+V+C.

• Conditional Formatting in Excel

Conditional formatting applies conditions to the data and highlights the results satisfying a particular condition. You can use it for various purposes, like highlighting cells with numbers above/below a particular bar, cells containing specific text or duplicates, and many other rules that you can set to apply conditional formatting. The shortcut key to conditional formatting is ALT+H+L.

• Removing Duplicates in Excel

Working on data can be challenging, especially when you have huge data sets and want to remove duplicates. What can be an ideal solution? Are you looking at the figures and removing them one by one? No, this can not be used when the data is huge. For removing duplicates from data, we have a shortcut key in Excel. Select the column to delete the duplicates, and go to DATA ribbon > data tools > delete duplicates. All you are left with is unique values.

• Vlookup Function in Excel

Vlookup function is one of the most important and famous functions of Excel. It is used to look up values vertically, i.e., from the columns. The syntax for the Vlookup formula is,=Vlookup((lookup_value,table_arrray,col_index_num,[range_lookup])

It is often used to fetch data from different sheets and files.

• Shortcut functions in Excel

Although there are plenty of shortcuts that can be used in Excel, a few shortcut functions that every data analyst must know include:

§ Proper function- is used to uppercase every word in the text

§ Lower function - is used to lowercase every word in the text

§ Upper function - is used to uppercase all text

§ Trim function - is used to remove odd spaces from the text

For a Data Analyst, it is essential to be proficient in Excel skills. Try using these five functions in your data functioning, and let us know in the comment section which is your favorite function in Excel.