MS Excel + AI Course (Beginner to Advanced) in Lebanon

MS Excel + AI Course (Beginner to Advanced)

24 Live Training Hours · Beginner to Advanced · Power Query · Power Pivot · Dashboards · AI-Assisted Formulas and Data Analysis · Practical Projects

Master Excel from essential data entry and formulas through advanced analysis, automation, and reporting. Learn to use PivotTables, Power Query, Power Pivot, dynamic arrays, dashboards, and VBA, together with Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, and Claude to create formulas, analyze data, automate repetitive work, and verify AI-generated results.

Duration: 24 hours

Teaching Methodology: Hands-on, step-by-step labs

Course Schedule: Schedule

Fees: $360

Course Mode: Blended - Face-to-face or online via Zoom

DESCRIPTION

This hands-on Excel course takes complete beginners from "what am I looking at?" to confident, professional Excel use. You will start with the interface, cell addresses, and keyboard-driven navigation, then build real skills in formatting, worksheet management, and organizing data with Tables, sorting, filtering, and data validation.

From there you will master formulas and cell references, essential logical and conditional functions, lookup functions, and text and date functions, and learn to find and fix formula errors with confidence. The course then moves into charts, conditional formatting, PivotTables and PivotCharts, data cleaning, Power Query, and Power Pivot, followed by dynamic array formulas, What-If Analysis, workbook protection, printing, and using Excel as a visual document and dashboard tool.

The course concludes with two dedicated modules on AI-assisted Excel - using Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, and Claude to generate formulas, analyze data, and automate tasks with VBA, always paired with a clear method for checking that AI-generated results are actually correct - and a final integrated project that brings every skill together into one small-business reporting system.

OBJECTIVES

By the end of the course, you will be able to:

  • Navigate the Excel interface confidently, using both mouse and keyboard, and work with workbooks, sheets, ranges, and named ranges.
  • Enter, edit, and format data professionally, and organize worksheets and workbooks for clarity.
  • Build clean, well-structured data tables with sorting, filtering, and data validation.
  • Write formulas confidently using relative, absolute, and mixed references.
  • Apply essential logical, conditional, and lookup functions (IF, AND/OR, COUNTIFS/SUMIFS, VLOOKUP, XLOOKUP) to real business problems.
  • Clean and manipulate text and date data, and diagnose and fix common formula errors.
  • Build PivotTables, PivotCharts, and interactive dashboards using slicers and conditional formatting.
  • Use Power Query and Power Pivot to import, clean, and combine datasets, and apply dynamic array formulas and What-If Analysis tools.
  • Protect, print, and share workbooks, and design professional visual documents, forms, and dashboards in Excel.
  • Use Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, and Claude to generate and explain formulas, analyze data, and automate tasks with VBA - while verifying every AI-generated result before relying on it.

PREREQUISITES

No prior Excel knowledge is required. Basic computer skills are recommended.

COURSE CONTENTS

01 - GETTING STARTED WITH EXCEL

  • What Excel is used for, and what a spreadsheet is
  • Workbook, worksheet, row, column, cell, and range explained
  • The Excel screen: Ribbon, tabs, Quick Access Toolbar, Name Box, Formula Bar, Status Bar, sheet tabs
  • Cell addresses (A1, B5, D10), the active cell, and reading the grid
  • Essential shortcuts: Ctrl+N/O/S/W, Ctrl+Z/Y, Ctrl+Home, Ctrl+End

02 - NAVIGATING AND ENTERING DATA

  • Keyboard navigation: arrows, Tab, Enter, Page Up/Down, Ctrl+Home/End
  • Selecting cells, ranges, rows, columns, and the whole worksheet
  • Data types: text, numbers, dates, time, currency, percentages, formulas
  • Entering and editing data (F2), replacing and clearing cell contents
  • Copy, cut, paste, undo and redo

03 - FORMATTING AND WORKSHEET MANAGEMENT

  • Font, size, bold/italic/underline, font color, fill color, borders
  • Alignment: left/center/right, top/middle/bottom, Wrap Text, Merge & Center (and when not to use it)
  • Number formats: General, Number, Currency, Accounting, Percentage, Date, Time
  • Column width, row height, AutoFit, inserting/deleting/hiding rows and columns, Freeze Panes
  • Renaming, adding, moving, copying and color-coding worksheets

04 - ORGANIZING DATA: TABLES, SORTING, FILTERING & VALIDATION

  • Rules of a proper data table: one row per record, clear headers, no blank rows or merged cells inside data
  • Excel Tables: styles, header row, total row, automatic expansion, structured references
  • Sorting (A-Z, Z-A, multiple columns) and filtering by text, number and date
  • Data Validation: drop-down lists, whole number/decimal/date limits, input and error messages
  • Common data-entry problems: spelling variations, incorrect dates, numbers stored as text

05 - FORMULAS 101: OPERATORS, REFERENCES & FIRST CALCULATIONS

  • What a formula is; operators (+, -, *, /, ^) and order of operations
  • Cell references instead of hard-coded numbers, and why results update automatically
  • Relative references, and what happens when a formula is copied
  • Absolute ($A$1) and mixed references ($A1, A$1); using the F4 key
  • Exercise: building an invoice and a sales commission calculator

06 - ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS: LOGICAL, CONDITIONAL & STATISTICAL

  • Core functions: SUM, AVERAGE, MIN, MAX, COUNT, COUNTA
  • IF statements and logical thinking: TRUE/FALSE, conditions
  • Multiple conditions with AND, OR, NOT, and nested IF
  • Conditional aggregation: COUNTIF, SUMIF, AVERAGEIF
  • Multiple-criteria functions: COUNTIFS, SUMIFS, AVERAGEIFS

07 - LOOKUP FUNCTIONS: VLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH & XLOOKUP

  • Why lookups are needed, and matching data between tables
  • VLOOKUP: lookup value, table array, column index, exact match
  • INDEX and MATCH as a flexible alternative to VLOOKUP
  • XLOOKUP as the modern preferred function: searching left or right, custom "not found" messages
  • Exercise: building a product lookup and an auto-filled invoice

08 - TEXT, DATE & TIME FUNCTIONS

  • Text functions: LEFT, RIGHT, MID, LEN, TRIM, UPPER, LOWER, PROPER, CONCAT, TEXTJOIN
  • Cleaning imported data and combining first and last names
  • Dates as numbers in Excel; TODAY, NOW, DAY, MONTH, YEAR, WEEKDAY, DATEDIF
  • Practical uses: age calculators, deadline counters, delivery and service-length trackers

09 - ERROR HANDLING & FORMULA AUDITING

  • Common errors: #DIV/0!, #VALUE!, #REF!, #NAME?, #N/A, #NUM!
  • IFERROR and IS-functions: ISBLANK, ISNUMBER, ISTEXT
  • Formula auditing tools: trace precedents/dependents, show formulas, evaluate formula
  • Exercise: diagnosing and repairing a deliberately broken spreadsheet

10 - CHARTS, VISUALIZATION & CONDITIONAL FORMATTING

  • Chart types: column, bar, line, pie, area, scatter, combo, waterfall
  • Choosing the right chart; titles, axis titles, legends, data labels, avoiding misleading charts
  • Sparklines and PivotCharts
  • Conditional formatting: rules, data bars, color scales, icon sets
  • Exercise: turning sales data into a visual performance dashboard

11 - PIVOTTABLES, PIVOTCHARTS & SLICERS

  • Building PivotTables from clean data: rows, columns, values, filters
  • Grouping data and creating calculated fields
  • PivotCharts connected to PivotTables
  • Slicers and timeline filters for interactive reporting

12 - DATA CLEANING, POWER QUERY & POWER PIVOT

  • Remove Duplicates, Find and Replace, Text to Columns, Flash Fill
  • Power Query (Get & Transform): importing, cleaning, appending and merging datasets
  • Refreshing queries and combining several monthly files into one table
  • Power Pivot and data modeling (introduction)

13 - ADVANCED FORMULAS, WHAT-IF ANALYSIS & MACRO BASICS

  • Dynamic array functions: FILTER, SORT, SORTBY, UNIQUE, SEQUENCE
  • Combining functions (for example IFERROR wrapped around XLOOKUP or SUMIFS) and debugging formulas step by step
  • What-If Analysis: Goal Seek, Scenario Manager, Data Tables
  • Introduction to Macros (VBA): recording simple repetitive tasks

14 - PROTECTING, PRINTING & SHARING WORKBOOKS

  • Protecting cells, worksheets and workbooks; locking formulas
  • Comments/notes, co-authoring in Microsoft 365, and version control
  • Print Area, page orientation, margins, scaling, headers and footers, repeating header rows
  • Print Preview and exporting workbooks to PDF

15 - EXCEL AS A VISUAL DOCUMENT TOOL

  • Inserting and formatting pictures, icons, shapes, text boxes, and WordArt
  • Positioning, aligning, grouping, and layering objects
  • Named ranges, hyperlinks, drop-down menus, and simple form controls
  • Designing printable forms, information sheets, KPI cards, and one-page dashboard layouts

16 - AI WITH EXCEL (COPILOT & PROMPT ENGINEERING)

  • Introduction to AI in Excel
    • What AI can do for you: explain, suggest, create, analyze, summarize, find patterns, troubleshoot, and teach
    • Why AI should be treated as an assistant, not an unquestionable authority
    • When to use AI versus manual methods for accuracy and efficiency
  • Using Microsoft Copilot in Excel
    • Generating formulas using natural language prompts
    • Cleaning and transforming raw datasets automatically
    • Creating PivotTables, charts, and business summaries with AI assistance
  • Prompt Engineering for Excel Tasks
    • The 5-part prompt formula: role, context, data location, goal, and desired response format
    • Comparing weak, better, and excellent prompts for the same Excel task
    • Iterative prompting: refining a request when the first answer is not quite right
  • Mini Project: AI-Powered Data Analysis
    • Import and clean a real-world dataset
    • Use Copilot to generate analysis, charts, and insights
    • Present findings in a short, structured report

17 - AI WITH EXCEL (CHATGPT / CLAUDE & VBA)

  • Generating and Debugging VBA with AI
    • Writing prompts to create Excel macros and custom VBA functions
    • Working with the VBA editor: enabling the Developer tab, ALT+F11, inserting modules, running macros with F5
    • Asking AI to explain, simplify, or improve generated code
  • Verifying AI-Generated Results: The 3-Step Rule
    • Understand: can you explain what the formula or macro is supposed to do?
    • Test: try it on a small, known piece of data first
    • Check: compare the result with a manual calculation or another method
  • Privacy, Security & Professional Best Practices
    • Never pasting confidential data (names, IDs, phone numbers, financial details) into an AI tool; using placeholders instead
    • Understanding macro security warnings and avoiding unsafe or unknown VBA code
    • Combining VBA safely with Power Query and Excel formulas
  • Mini Project: AI-Generated Excel Macro
    • Use AI to generate a VBA macro for a real Excel task
    • Test and debug the macro inside Excel, then improve it using AI feedback
    • Build a simple automated reporting workflow

18 - FINAL INTEGRATED PROJECT

  • Example Project: Small Business Sales System
    • Sheet 1 - Product Database: Product ID, Product Name, Category, Price, Stock
    • Sheet 2 - Orders: Order ID, Customer, Product ID, Product Name via XLOOKUP, Quantity, Price, Total, Status, Date
    • Sheet 3 - Analysis: total sales, average order, sales by product/country, completed and pending orders
    • Sheet 4 - Dashboard: charts, KPIs, conditional formatting, and slicers
  • AI-Assisted Finishing Touches
    • Ask AI to help write and check the XLOOKUP and totals formulas
    • Ask AI to suggest the best chart type for comparing sales by product
    • Apply the 3-step verification rule before finalizing the workbook
  • Publish the finished dashboard as a one-page PDF report

Related Project Management Courses

This Microsoft Excel course is part of ETC's project management & quantity surveying training program in Lebanon. Explore the other courses:

Learning Outcomes

After completing this course, participants will be able to:

  • Use Excel confidently from beginner to advanced level, starting from the interface and keyboard navigation.
  • Create formulas, functions, charts and formatted worksheets.
  • Analyze data using sorting, filtering, PivotTables and Power Query.
  • Use dynamic arrays, dashboards and visual document design for business reporting.
  • Apply AI tools to support formulas, analysis and productivity, with a clear method for verifying AI-generated results.

Recommended Learning Path for Beginners

For pre-university and non-engineers, we recommend the following path:


Recommended Learning Path for Engineers

For a stronger project management and construction workflow, we recommend the following path:


Related Project Management Courses

This course is part of ETC's Project Management and QS training department in Lebanon. Explore related courses:

Certifications & Accreditations

ETC Expertise Training Center is a licensed educational institution in Lebanon. Participants receive an ETC certificate of completion upon successfully finishing their course.

Students who meet the requirements outlined in ETC's certification roadmap may also qualify for ETC certificates attested by the Lebanese Ministry of Education, providing locally recognized, attested professional certification.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is this Microsoft Excel course for?
Students, fresh graduates, business users, accountants, and analysts who want a practical, beginner-to-advanced path in Excel, including complete newcomers who have never opened a spreadsheet before.

What will I learn?
Starting from the Excel interface and keyboard-based navigation, you will progress through formatting, tables, data validation, formulas and cell references, essential and lookup functions, text and date functions, error handling, charts, conditional formatting, PivotTables and PivotCharts, Power Query and Power Pivot, dynamic arrays, workbook protection and printing, visual document design, and AI-assisted workflows using Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT and Claude.

Do I need prior experience?
No prior Excel experience is required. The course begins with the fundamentals of the Excel screen and cell navigation before building up to intermediate and advanced topics.

How is the course delivered?
Blended delivery - attend in-person at ETC Lebanon or join live online via Zoom.

What is the duration and fee?
The recommended duration is 24 hours for the full beginner-to-advanced track, including AI-assisted Excel modules. The course fee is USD 360; contact ETC for corporate or shortened-track pricing.

Do I receive a certificate?
Yes. Participants receive an ETC certificate of completion. Students who meet the requirements in ETC's certification roadmap may also qualify for an ETC certificate attested by the Lebanese Ministry of Education.