We get it. You've spent decades interacting with Excel. You ask yourself, "Is there really that much I don't know?"
Did you know - without any VBA - it is now possible to...
...automate complex data transformations from multiple sources?
...create your own functions?
...filter whole tables by multiple criteria using a single formula?
For decades terms like "pivot table", "SUMIFS," and "COUNTA" have been the shibboleths used by analysts to assert their proficiency within the world of spreadsheets. But those terms are quickly giving way to new and potentially confounding ones: "power query," "dynamic arrays," or "LAMBDA." These are the new code words for those in the know and if you find yourself in unfamiliar territory, you are not alone.
Over the last 15 years, Microsoft has so thoroughly changed Excel that it is not misleading to call it an entirely new platform relative to Excel 2010. Power Query for automating complex transformations, dynamic array handling for formulas, and over 50 completely new functions added since 2018 have combined to make modern Excel a formidable multi-use platform for modern data sets.
Despite these changes having been available for several years, many finance teams continue to rely on decades-old files and procedures. Unfortunately for most teams, "data transformation" still means copying and pasting thousands of rows from CSV files and pasting VLOOKUP down entire columns to add dimensionality. But operations like this can easily be automated in modern Excel, usually in several different ways. And far from performing simple transformations, modern Excel can be used for fairly extensive ETL and the creation of relational table data structures. All while never needing to depend on any other software platform.
If you find yourself wondering wether modern Excel could be the key to your automation goals, we would be happy to chat with you in a free, no-obligation call. Just reach out to us at inquiries@duristel.com and we'll go from there!