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Excel INDEX and Named Ranges

Excel allows you to refer to cells as just B6 or C17:D26 (for example), but ranges can also be given meaningful names like Market_Share. Here is a video to introduce named ranges and then using INDEX to access cells within a named range:

Named Ranges and INDEX

Creating graphs of data with the use of INDEX is quite useful. Here are some examples:

Single Variable Scatterplots

Histograms (using the FREQUENCY function)

XY Scatterplots

Excel Graphs

There are many kinds of graphs in Excel, and this page looks at a few of the most common types of graphs.

The first is just to do a scatterplot of all the data points. This allows us to “see” the variability of the data:

Scatterplots

Similar to this is to graph each point as a column. This gives us a bit more sense of how “big” each value is:

Column Charts

Similar to a column chart (one column per data point) is a histogram. Instead of plotting each point, the graph shows the number of points in various ranges (for example, 1-10, 11-20, etc.). There is a built-in tool for creating histograms in the Data Analysis tool pack:

Histograms using the Data Analysis Tool Pack

Histograms can also be constructed using the Excel function FREQUENCY():

Histograms using the FREQUENCY() function

And the last graph type we will look at is an XY scatterplot:

XYScatterplots

Excel Help

There are a number of videos for using Excel for data and decision analysis.  They are organized into small pages, and this page is a table of contents.  If you don’t find what you need, let me know and I’ll either add a new video or make video easier to find.  Thanks.

General Introduction to Excel

Descriptive Statistics using Excel

Simple Graphs using Excel

Named Ranges, INDEX(), and Simple Graphs using the INDEX() function

Analytic Solver Platform Add-in for Excel

 

Excel Statistics

We can use Excel to create descriptive statistics for a data set. Here are a few videos with some help on how to do some basic tasks.

The filter command is often a good place to start with a new dataset:

Using Filter

In the Analysis Toolpack, there is a way to quickly calculate the descriptive statistics for a dataset:

Analysis Toolpack Descriptive Statistics

Sometimes, the Analysis Toolpack is missing from the Data menu tab. If it is, here is the way to install it:

Install the Analysis Toolpack

Descriptive statistics can also be computed using the built-in functions Excel provides:

Basic Statistical Functions

SAS/JMP Quick Start Guide

This is a quick start guide for SAS/JMP, the one of the statistical software packages used at Goizueta. It is Excel-friendly and requires no programming. I have created some videos to help get you started, once you have the software installed on your computer.

Here is a quick overview and some helpful preference changes that will make JMP a bit easier to use:

01-Overview

JMP will easily import data from Excel:

02-Import Data

Descriptive statistics with JMP:

03-Descriptive Statistics

JMP version of Excel pivot tables:

04-Tabulate

Scatterplots:

05-Scatterplots

Create single regression models:

06-Single Regression

Multiple regression models, with categorical data and nonlinear relationships:

07-Multiple Regression