Improving the average level of Excel-IQ within an organization makes a huge improvement to the overall productivity of staff. Use the questions below to assess how Excel-backwards (or not) your organization is in 4 key areas. Upon completion, you'll get a personalized assessment and a suggested action plan. Reporting/Dashboards/KPIs Excel reports are setup so that data is extracted directly from our data sources and that data is refreshed automatically (i.e. no re-keying) then published to the web if required. Please select your answer N/A or don't know Never Rarely Sometimes Mostly Always We are able to link to both internal (on-premise) and external (cloud) data sources to make the most of our organisation data & the data that is available to us. Please select your answer N/A or don't know Never occurs Rarely occurs Sometimes occurs Often occurs We do this all the time We use Excel’s reporting capabilities such as Pivot Tables, VBA Macro automation, charts, Power BI visualization and drill-down. Please select your answer N/A or don't know Never Rarely Sometimes Often Always Financial Modelling & Budgeting/Forecasting Financial modelling standards have been implemented in our organisation so that models are consistent. Please select your answer What are modelling standards? We have some loose guidelines Standards have been defined but are not used Standards have been defined but only a few people use them Standards are well-defined and widely used Our financial modellers understand both finance and the business, and are able to analyse and interpret the results of their models so management clearly understands the implications. Please select your answer N/A - we don't do financial modelling Our financial modellers are hopeless at both Our financial modellers focus primarily on modelling only Our financial modellers are OK at modelling, analysis & interpretation Our financial modellers are great at modelling, analysis & interpretation A regular risk assessment process has been implemented to identify, independently review and assure key models. Please select your answer N/A - our models are always perfect! We only review models when required (e.g. by financiers) We usually only review models after someone finds a problem We regularly conduct internal reviews of our known important spreadsheets We periodically inventory key spreadsheets, assess their risks, then conduct independent reviews Budgets & forecasts are flexible so that new accounts and cost centres can be added easily, and relevant data from different systems within the organisation can be easily integrated. Please select your answer N/A Changing anything in our budgets & forecasts is difficult & error-prone Our budgets & forecasts can be updated but it takes a long time Our budgets & forecasts can be easily updated but are NOT integrated with our systems Our budgets & forecasts can be easily updated and are integrated with our systems Training All regular Excel users: receive training when new Excel versions are released and when they join the organisation to ensure they make maximum use of the most relevant features. Please select your answer N/A Never - users train themselves We send some staff on training sometimes Training usually occurs when enough people complain about this in their performance reviews Training occurs reasonably regularly Training is well-planned and co-ordinated Administrative & clerical staff are efficient in the essentials of data manipulation, data validation, data entry, keyboard & mouse shortcuts. Please select your answer N/A or don't know LOL ... definitely not! Some staff have some skills in these areas but most aren't great The motivated ones have self-taught themselves these skills Most admin staff have reasonable skills in these areas All our admin staff have the skills they need in these areas Finance staff are proficient in core Excel functionality that avoids the need to re-key, copy/paste, and manually filter and sort data. They also have a good understanding of advanced functions and functionality. Please select your answer N/A or don't know Finance staff aren't up to scratch in these areas Finance staff are OK but aren't as great as they think they are in these areas Most finance staff have reasonable skills in these areas All our finance staff have the skills they need in these areas Analysts can quickly manipulate data to provide insightful analysis using their proficiency in Excel functions/functionality: INDEX/MATCH, SUMIFS, PowerPivot & PowerQuery, data tables, Pivot Tables, charting, formula-driven range names, VBA macros etc. Please select your answer N/A or don't know Definitely not Some analysts are OK in some of these areas Our analysts are across most of these areas Our analysts are gurus in all these areas Processes Processes are reviewed regularly to identify repetitive, time-consuming Excel tasks, which are then automated using appropriate Excel functions and/or VBA Macros. Please select your answer N/A or don't know Our processes haven't been reviewed in years Processes are usually only reviewed when there's a problem Processes are mainly reviewed for compliance purposes Processes are reviewed & assessed regularly to ensure compliance & efficiency Excel-based processes are documented & instructions are clearly mapped out within the files so that other staff can perform these tasks easily. Please select your answer N/A or don't know No one documents their Excel files A few key files have some documentation We've standardised our documentation and all key files use this Version control is well maintained and appropriate levels of file protection are applied. Please select your answer N/A or don't know We don't have any version control We let our document management system handle version & access control A few key Excel files use version control and protection where relevant All key Excel files use version control and have protection enabled where relevant What's your biggest Excel-related problem right now? Time's up Related Posts:Dynamic Data Validation with Tables in ExcelExcel Office Scripts for Effortless Data MovementUnleash ChatGPT’s Power in Office 36510 Ways to Know If Your Budgeting Process Flow Is BrokenStreamlining Power Query Code Documentation with GPT-4: A…Unleash the Power of Cloud-Based Budgeting &… Jeff Robson2023-10-12T00:25:07+08:00 Share This Story, Choose Your Platform! FacebookTwitterLinkedInEmail