Advanced Excel for Administrative Assistants

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Unlock the full potential of Excel with expert guidance from David H. Ringstrom, CPA, in this dynamic, hands-on webinar tailored for administrative professionals. Designed to enhance your day-to-day productivity, this session focuses on practical Excel skills that streamline data management, improve accuracy, and simplify reporting. You’ll begin by mastering essential text-cleanup techniques using functions like LEFT, MID, RIGHT, UPPER, LOWER, PROPER, TRIM, and CLEAN. From there, David walks you through consolidating data from multiple worksheets using Power Query—an invaluable tool for building self-updating reports.

The webinar continues with step-by-step demonstrations of how to leverage XLOOKUP for precision lookups, including last-match results and comparisons with legacy VLOOKUP formulas. You’ll explore powerful dynamic array functions such as SORT, UNIQUE, and FILTER, as well as create multi-condition filters and in-cell dropdowns using Data Validation. David also covers how to customize your Excel experience with Sheet View and provides a walkthrough on creating and personalizing Microsoft Forms. This comprehensive session ensures you walk away with a robust set of tools to elevate your Excel efficiency.

Topics Typically Covered:
  • Appending data from two or more worksheets into a self-updating consolidated list with Power Query
  • Eliminating non-printing characters using CLEAN and TRIM
  • Extracting and transforming text with UPPER, LOWER, and PROPER
  • Dynamic sorting with SORT and UNIQUE
  • Filtering data based on two or more conditions using FILTER
  • Creating in-cell dropdowns with Data Validation
  • Using XLOOKUP for exact matches and last-match results
  • Customizing workbook views with Sheet View
  • Reviewing Microsoft Forms styles, settings, and sharing options
Your Benefits for Attending:
  • Gain confidence using Excel’s text-cleanup functions like TRIM, CLEAN, and PROPER to format data quickly and accurately.
  • Learn how to consolidate data from multiple sheets using Power Query for efficient reporting.
  • Master XLOOKUP for precise lookups, including how to find the last matching value in a list.
  • Utilize dynamic array functions (SORT, UNIQUE, FILTER) to display and manage data sets with ease.
  • Customize your workbook views using Sheet View and explore Microsoft Forms for data collection.
  • Build dropdown lists with Data Validation and apply advanced filtering with multiple conditions.
  • Understand the key differences between Excel 365, 2024, 2021, and 2019 to ensure compatibility in your workflow.

This webinar is ideal for administrative professionals seeking to improve spreadsheet accuracy and speed up repetitive data tasks. You’ll leave with practical tools that make your daily work in Excel more efficient and stress-free.

Who Should Attend:

Professionals who want to enhance their Excel skills to improve the accuracy and efficiency of their spreadsheets.

CPE Credit Details:
Level: Intermediate
Format: Live webcast
Instructional Method: Group Internet-based
NASBA Field of Study: Computer Software & Applications (2 hours)
Program Prerequisites: Experience working in Excel
Advance Preparation: None
  • David H. Ringstrom, CPA

    David H. Ringstrom, CPA

    David H. Ringstrom, CPA, is a nationally recognized instructor who leads dozens of Excel webinars each year. He is the author of Microsoft 365 Excel for Dummies and several other books. With over 30 years of consulting and teaching experience he empowers users to work more efficiently in E [...]

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ATAAA Credit

Aurora Training Advantage is offering continuing education points designed to recognize dedication to training and excellence in administrative.

IAAP Credit

Aurora Training Advantage has reviewed the content of this program and believes it aligns with the CAP Body of Knowledge. We estimate this program may qualify for 1 recertification point(s), based on 1 point per 1 hour of eligible training. Final determination of applicability rests with the CAP designee, who is responsible for documenting alignment for recertification purposes.

CPE Credit

Continuing Professional Education

Aurora Training Advantage is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) as a sponsor of continuing professional education on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors. State boards of accountancy have final authority on the acceptance of individual courses for CPE credit. Complaints regarding registered sponsors may be submitted to the National Registry of CPE Sponsors through its website: www.nasbaregistry.org.

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Webinar Survey Overall Rating

This webinar received a total of 3 survey responses. Attendees have given an average rating of 4.8 stars out of a possible 5, reflecting the quality and value of the content presented.

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4.8 / 5
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5.0 Stars
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4.7 Stars
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4.7 Stars
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Reviews From Webinar Survey

Our webinars are crafted to deliver exceptional value and insight to business professionals. Below, you'll find genuine feedback from attendees.

Pamela L.
January 7, 2026
4.4 / 5
Webinar Rating:
4.3 Stars
Speaker Rating:
4.5 Stars
Do you have any other comments, questions or concerns?
Training was very informative, a little slower would have helped with note-taking but will revisit recording to catch up. Overall a great presentation!
April E.
January 7, 2026
5.0 / 5
Webinar Rating:
5.0 Stars
Speaker Rating:
5.0 Stars
Do you have any other comments, questions or concerns?
I said no to six because there was SO much information and he went over it quickly. I don't think he wasted any time. I appreciated him explaining it and then showing it in the excel; that really helped. A little more time might help those of us not as experienced with excel. I definitely learned things I've never heard of before; so that was awesome.
Jennifer S.
January 6, 2026
5.0 / 5
Webinar Rating:
5.0 Stars
Speaker Rating:
5.0 Stars
Do you have any other comments, questions or concerns?
Loved the presentation handout - will def be used as a reference in the future!!!

Frequently Asked Questions

Administrative assistants who invest in advanced Excel skills dramatically expand their value and efficiency. Beyond basic data entry, high-impact skills include text-cleanup functions—TRIM, CLEAN, UPPER, LOWER, PROPER, LEFT, MID, RIGHT—that quickly standardize and format imported data without manual correction. Power Query enables consolidation of data from multiple worksheets or files into a single, self-updating report, eliminating the time-consuming manual copy-paste process. XLOOKUP replaces the aging VLOOKUP with a more flexible, error-resistant alternative for precise data matching across tables. Dynamic array functions—SORT, UNIQUE, and FILTER—automatically update displayed data when source data changes, reducing manual report maintenance. Data Validation creates dropdown lists that enforce data entry consistency. For reporting, pivot tables and conditional formatting surface key information quickly. Understanding version differences between Excel 365, 2024, 2021, and 2019 ensures formulas and features work correctly across different systems. Aurora Training Advantage's Advanced Excel for Administrative Assistants webinar, led by CPA and Microsoft 365 Excel for Dummies author David Ringstrom, delivers hands-on training in all of these skills in a 100-minute session designed specifically for administrative professionals.
Power Query is one of the most powerful—and underutilized—features in Microsoft Excel, enabling users to import, combine, clean, and transform data from multiple sources with reusable, automated workflows. For administrative professionals, its most immediate benefit is consolidating data from multiple worksheets or workbooks into a single master list that updates automatically when source data changes—eliminating the manual copy-paste process that consumes hours each week. Power Query can connect to Excel files, CSV files, databases, SharePoint lists, and web data sources. The transformation tools within Power Query handle common data cleaning tasks—removing duplicates, splitting columns, unpivoting data, filtering rows, and standardizing text formats—through a point-and-click interface that records each step as a reusable query. Once built, a Power Query report refreshes with a single click, pulling in new data and applying all transformations instantly. This makes Power Query ideal for recurring reports like attendance tracking, expense consolidation, and inventory summaries. Aurora Training Advantage's Advanced Excel for Administrative Assistants webinar with David Ringstrom provides step-by-step instruction on building Power Query workflows for self-updating consolidated reports.
XLOOKUP is a modern Excel lookup function that was introduced in Excel 365 and 2019 to replace the aging and limitation-prone VLOOKUP. Where VLOOKUP requires the lookup column to be the leftmost column in the range, XLOOKUP can search any column and return data from any direction—left or right. VLOOKUP returns the first matching value by default; XLOOKUP can return the last match with a simple parameter change, which is invaluable for finding the most recent transaction for a customer or employee. XLOOKUP handles exact and approximate matches more intuitively, includes a built-in not-found value to avoid error messages, and does not require specifying a column index number—making formulas easier to write and maintain when columns are added or rearranged. It also supports looking up entire arrays, enabling multi-column returns in a single formula. For administrative professionals working with rosters, price lists, employee directories, and reference tables, XLOOKUP dramatically reduces formula complexity and error risk. Aurora Training Advantage's Advanced Excel for Administrative Assistants webinar with David Ringstrom covers XLOOKUP comprehensively, including exact match, last-match, and comparison with legacy VLOOKUP formulas.
Dynamic array functions, introduced in Excel 365 and Excel 2019, fundamentally changed how Excel handles data by allowing a single formula to return multiple results that automatically spill into adjacent cells—no need for copying formulas down columns. SORT automatically sorts a range or array by one or more columns and updates the sorted output instantly when source data changes, eliminating manual re-sorting. UNIQUE extracts a deduplicated list from a range, making it easy to generate lists of distinct customers, products, or categories from raw transaction data. FILTER returns only the rows that meet specified criteria—effectively creating a dynamic, formula-based filtered view of a dataset that updates automatically. These functions can be combined: for example, a single formula can sort a filtered list of unique values from a data set. For administrative professionals building dashboards, reports, and reference lists, dynamic array functions replace complex, fragile array formulas and reduce reliance on manual filtering. Aurora Training Advantage's Advanced Excel for Administrative Assistants webinar teaches SORT, UNIQUE, and FILTER with practical, workplace-relevant examples tailored for administrative professionals.
Data Validation is an Excel feature that restricts what can be entered into a cell, enforcing data quality at the point of entry before errors can propagate through reports and analyses. The most common application is the dropdown list—selecting allowed values from a predefined list rather than typing freeform entries, which eliminates typos, inconsistent capitalization, and invalid entries. Dropdown lists are particularly valuable in shared workbooks where multiple people enter data: they standardize entries for department names, status codes, project IDs, and other categorical values that are used in filters or lookups. Beyond dropdowns, Data Validation can restrict entries to numbers within a specified range, dates within a specified period, text of a specific length, or custom formula-based criteria. Error messages and input prompts guide users toward correct entries. Data Validation combined with XLOOKUP and FILTER creates powerful, error-resistant data collection tools within Excel. For administrative professionals managing rosters, event registrations, budget trackers, or equipment logs, mastering Data Validation reduces rework and improves report reliability significantly. Aurora Training Advantage's Advanced Excel for Administrative Assistants webinar covers Data Validation in-cell dropdowns and advanced filtering as part of a comprehensive skills-building curriculum.