Copilot in Excel Workshop: Workbook Rules, Skills and Variance Analysis

Copilot gives you a total in seconds. You still have to stand behind it.

You set up Copilot in Excel for how you work: personalization for your own preferences, and workbook rules that stay with the file. You clean a sales and budget workbook with the clean-data skill and prove the row count and totals. Using Edit with Copilot and Plan mode, you build a variance-versus-budget analysis that flags the regions past a threshold, a year-over-year trend and a what-if scenario, with charts. You run built-in skills, turn the monthly variance review into a custom skill of your own, and run it on the next month’s data. You check every number before it goes into the executive summary. The class closes with a demonstration of Excel features still rolling out.

What you will do

• Set personalization and write workbook rules that Copilot follows
• Clean a workbook with the clean-data skill and prove the row count and totals
• Build a variance-versus-budget analysis in Plan mode and flag what crosses the threshold
• Build a trend, a what-if scenario and charts, and check each against the data
• Run built-in skills and write a custom skill of your own
• Write an executive summary that uses only checked figures

You leave with: A cleaned workbook with a .Rules sheet, a variance-versus-budget analysis, trend and what-if sheets with charts, a checked executive summary, and a custom skill you can run every month.

Copilot license: Copilot Premium (the paid Microsoft 365 Copilot license).

Who it is for: Analysts, finance staff, managers and anyone who is asked what the numbers say.

What you need

• Microsoft 365 Copilot license: the paid add-on, or Microsoft 365 E7, which includes it. The Copilot label under the user’s name reads M365 Copilot (Premium). Excel desktop on Windows or Mac, or Excel on the web, with the Office display language set to English (workbook rules are English only). OneDrive is required for custom skills. Custom skills are new and may not be available in every organization; where they are not, the instructor shows that part. Sample workbooks are sent before class and saved to OneDrive.
• Check before you register: Open Microsoft 365 Copilot with your work account and read the label under your name at the bottom of the page. It must end in (Premium).
• Microsoft 365 Copilot license assigned. Comfortable with Excel tables, basic formulas and PivotTables.
• A computer with a reliable internet connection. The online meeting link is sent after you register.

You receive: Lab exercise handout, the sample workbooks, a starter SKILL.md file and a prompt guide with every prompt used in class.

Length: 3 hours. Level: Beginner to Intermediate. Format: Live session, hands-on. Each person works in their own account.

Your instructor: Cecil Renshaw is a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) and Project Management Professional (PMP) with more than 18 years of Microsoft 365 training and consulting for government agencies, corporations and small businesses. He writes his own courseware. SharePoint Business Solutions, Inc. (SBSI), sharepointmentoring.com.

Refunds: Full refund up to 7 days before the class. The class runs with at least 4 registrations. If SBSI cancels the class, you get a full refund.

Private sessions: This class can be run for your team, online or on-site. Contact cecil.renshaw@sharepointbiz.com or (217) 741-7165.