Part 2: Data Ranges and Tables

Excel is application for storing, managing and analyzing data, with the emphasis on analyzing data through calculations and organizing it. Actual collection of big data (thousands-to-millions of records) is usually managed in databases.

A database is an organized collection of data, generally stored and accessed electronically from a computer system. In a way, a database is like a huge warehouse of information that is necessary for data acquisition, analysis, reporting and computations, but the database itself does not do that work. It holds the data for exporting to other applications that can do the work, like Excel for computations.

We will explore how to generate, import, organize, and analyze data effectively. To manage and analyze a group of related data, we will learn how to understand and manage ranges of data, and later how to convert data ranges into an Excel table for easier analysis, maintenance, and reference in calculations.