Excel Data Analysis: Free Course

About this course

Learn how to turn a spreadsheet into a useful analysis rather than a collection of numbers. This free Corporate Finance Institute course preserves all six numbered data-analysis classes and the original course preview. It introduces a practical Excel workflow for organising data, investigating a business question and presenting the result clearly.

Course at a glance

What you’ll learn

• Structure and inspect a dataset before using it to support a business decision.
• Apply Excel tools and formulas to organise and transform information for analysis.
• Use pivot tables and charts to compare data and identify useful patterns.
• Build a clear analytical view that connects a visual result with its underlying data.

Skills you’ll gain

• Excel data analysis
• Data preparation
• Pivot tables
• Spreadsheet formulas
• Data visualization
• Analytical communication

Course Overview

The course follows a complete six-part recorded teaching sequence. Its focus is the journey from raw information to a result another person can understand: organise the workbook, inspect the data, choose an analytical technique and communicate the findings. Excel is useful because calculations and source records can remain visible in one place. The important habit is to connect each transformation with a question and check that the result still represents the original information. This is the publisher’s YouTube video edition. Separate platform exercises, assessments and later curriculum revisions are outside this classroom.

How to study the course

• Begin with Part 1 and keep a practice workbook alongside the lessons. Record what each column represents and identify missing or inconsistent values.
• Move through Parts 2–5 in order. Compare a small manual calculation with the spreadsheet result before applying a technique to the whole dataset.
• Use Part 6 to consolidate the workflow and revisit the preview as an overview. Keep every source recording available when reviewing a difficult step.

Use the searchable classroom lesson list to revisit a specific explanation. Pause after a useful demonstration, reproduce a small example and explain the result in your own words. Keep a short note of what worked, what changed and what you still need to understand before moving on.

Who is this for?

This course suits spreadsheet users, students and early-career analysts who want a more organised approach to business data. It is particularly useful when you can enter information in Excel but need a clearer method for analysing it.

Before you start

Basic Excel navigation is helpful. Use a suitable Excel installation for practice; some features differ between versions. Free video access does not include Microsoft software, CFI membership resources or assessment.

Put the lessons into practice

Create a small invented sales dataset with dates, products, regions, quantities and prices. Add a few deliberate inconsistencies, then document how you identify and resolve them. Build a summary that answers two questions, such as which region produces the most revenue and whether the monthly pattern is stable. Present the result in a simple chart and retain the supporting table. Check several totals manually and write a short note explaining one finding, one limitation and what further information would improve the analysis.

This optional activity is provided by WikiFree for independent practice. It is not a graded assignment from the instructor. Keep your working notes, check the result against the task you defined and return to the relevant lesson when an assumption or technique is unclear.

Certificate / Assessment

Watching the public videos and using WikiFree progress tracking does not award a certificate, exam voucher, academic credit or instructor assessment. Separate CFI platform assessments, CPE credit and certification requirements are not included in this YouTube edition.

Use your practice output to review what you can now explain and repeat independently. Completion tracking records your study progress; it does not replace an assessed qualification or professional experience.

Frequently asked questions

Provider: Corporate Finance Institute. Videos play from the Corporate Finance Institute channel on YouTube.