Welcome to the Course

Welcome to Microsoft Future Ready: Data Analysis Using Excel with Essential Mathematics course.

Starting with the absolute basics of maths and data, this course builds up your analyst skills while removing the mathematical hurdles and barriers that often come with beginning to learn how to analyse data. This course is intended for anyone with the desire to do data analysis and who would like to learn the math behind it all in a simplified way, as well as for anyone who would like a thorough refresher on the essentials.

Learn how to handle different data types, understand mathematical notation, become proficient in handling data sets and summary statistics, and even get a sneak peek into how to be effective at making statistical inferences and predictions, all told in a way to maximise your understanding—so that afterwards, you can be well on your way toward analysing data in any field or discipline.

Course Content

This course has six main sections:

1. Introduction to Data and Variables – you’ll look at different types of data, unpack variables as a concept, and explore the implications these have for how we look at data in business and in the world at large. You’ll also learn the basics of mathematical notation that pertains to data analysis.
2. Summarising Data with Distributions and Graphs – you’ll leverage common visualisation techniques such as histograms, pie charts, bar graphs, etc, and the underlying tables that go with them to understand the essential measurements and math behind distributions. Additional topics covered include skewness and various kinds of non-normality.
3. Summary Statistics – you’ll learn to identify the right summary statistic for variables. You’ll also learn how to compute those summary statistics using both stock Excel functions and nesting basic Excel functions. Topics covered include mode, mean, median, standard deviation, interquartile range, proportions and crosstabs.
4. Business Statistics – you’ll learn about KPIs (key performance indicators) in a business context, as well as the different types of KPI you might see from business, financial, sales, marketing, and IT analysts.
5. Introduction to Inferential Math and Forecasting – you’ll explore and apply the principles of inferential statistics. You’ll also be introduced to the basics of forecasting in Excel for data analysis.
6. Final Exam and CloudSwyft Hands-On Labs – at the very end of the course, you’ll take a 20-question, multiple-choice end of course assessment and complete two Lab challenges.

Who is the course for?

This course is intended for anyone with the desire to learn the very basics of maths to be able to analyse data. We shall learn mathematical notation and the basics of data and variables, become proficient in handling data sets and summary statistics and even get a sneak peek into how to be effective at making statistical inferences and predictions, all told in a way to maximise your understanding – so that you too can become an analyst of data in any field or discipline.

Course Schedule

This course is set up in a self-paced format. You can listen to the lectures and attempt the quizzes at your pace. You should aim to complete this course in 15 hours or 3 weeks at 5 hours a week.

Course Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites for taking this course however some basic Excel proficiency will be beneficial.

Course Subscription

Your CloudSwyft Online Hands-On Lab Session for this FutureLearn ExpertTrack course is free to use for 2 hours for your first 7 days with us on this learning journey!

Subscribe now (if you have not already) for this ExpertTrack and you will get an additional 12 Lab hour credits for this course for 1 month along with your certificate of completion. You will get 12 hours more for another month of subscription thereafter!

We hope you enjoy this course.