Office technology keeps improving - it's as important as ever to stay on the cutting edge and keep learning.

Welcome to your weekly dose of productivity and insights, tailored for the busy professional. If you were forwarded this message, you can get the free weekly email here.

In focus today:

• New checkboxes in Excel
• Brand new Excel functions plus more news from Ignite
• Our Black Friday updates

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✅ Excel's NEW Checkboxes Are Incredibly Cool!​

Inbuilt, easy-to-use Excel checkboxes have been a long-awaited feature that was recently added to Office 365 Beta channel. It took a while for this feature to appear on my device. But here we are now.

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Check out my latest video where I quickly take you through examples of how you can integrate checkboxes in your workflow. We build a mini dashboard and in the process, you'll learn some extra tricks to help you combine this feature to create visually appealing reports.

You'll learn to:

• Easily add checkboxes to your spreadsheets
• Count checked items
• Create a formula to return the list of unchecked items
• Use conditional formatting to visually emphasize completed tasks
• Add a timestamp when the task was completed (hidden hack included! 🤯) - and going by the YouTube comments this seems to be among the favorites.

Remember, this is still a preview feature and it may be a while before it's widely available. But once it is, just imagine the improved workflows and all the possibilities...

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Black Friday Sales: A Week of Exclusive Offers!

On Monday, I mentioned our exciting Black Friday event. This week, we're introducing special bundles that are only available for Black Friday. Some more info about the offers:

🔥 Black Friday Bundles:

1. Super-Power Bundle
2. Beginner's Boost Bundle

Each bundle contains a selection of our popular courses at a fantastic discount. I'll be sharing more details later this week but what each of these will come with, are exclusive free bonuses:

• New Course - "Quick Wins with ChatGPT": I've created this course to share insights on using AI to make your work easier. Plus, you'll get our ChatGPT Playbook, full of practical tips and prompts to simplify complex tasks.
• Expert eBooks and Resources: Each Bundle comes with a unique eBook from Microsoft MVPs like Mike "ExcelisFun" Girvin, Oz du Soleil and Bill Jelen (aka. Mr. Excel). I've personally learnt a lot from them and I'm super excited to be able to share their books with you.

Want to be the first to know all the details? Join our Early Bird Insider List if you haven't joined yet. Expect a detailed email from me this Wednesday. If you prefer to skip early announcements, you can Opt Out of Early Bird Deals.

⏳ Limited Time Offer: Remember, these special deals and bonuses are exclusive to the Black Friday period and will only be shared via email. Keep an eye on your inbox!

Please note that individual courses will not be discounted during this event.

Looking forward to sharing more with you soon.

🤓 Geeky News

📈 New aggregation functions in Excel

GROUPBY and PIVOTBY just rolled out to Excel Insiders. These new functions simplify data grouping using easy-to-use lambda functions.

It's like building a pivot table, but with a formula that updates automatically and can integrate results from other calculations.

GROUPBY groups data based on specified criteria, while PIVOTBY extends this by enabling column-based grouping. Then you pick the aggregation you want from a list.

Both functions offer enhanced control over outputs, such as sorting and filtering.

Additionally, the new PERCENTOF function efficiently calculates percentages, complementing these functions well.

➰ Microsoft Loop is now generally available!

​Commercial customers can use Loop on web and mobile.

In case you're not sure what Loop is, it's an "everything in 1 app" - mainly a great place to create your project plans or brain-storm new concepts.

Microsoft is investing heavily in this app and we keep getting new features.

For example you can add a Whiteboard to your Loop page. This will create a Loop component so when you share that same Whiteboard in a Teams meeting and make updates to it during the meeting, it will update across all apps.

You can automatically generate a table of contents for your Loop page, based on the headers of the page for quick navigation between sections.

They've also added the ability to export Loop tables to Excel.

We've been using Loop for a few months now and our impressions are mostly positive.

At the beginning it was a bit unstable but as Microsoft moved closer to general availability, it got a ton of new features and it became very dependable. So we ended up moving two of our main processes to the Loop app:

1. This very newsletter you're reading now is a team effort and it's first put together in Loop.
2. Our latest project - the "Quick Wins with ChatGPT" course was first brainstormed and tracked in the Loop app. BTW, you can get this course for free if you participate in our Black Friday deals.

📊 Improved button slicer in Power BI

Slicing data in Power BI has just gotten much more stylish. The new button slicer (now in preview) is what you've been waiting for if you design reports in PBI.

It's much more customizable than the standard tile slicer. You can modify the shape & layout, include images, control the interactive options like hover and press effects, and much more.

This is just the beginning; the other slicer types are in line for their upgrades as well 😊

(We will soon update our Fast Track to Power BI course to include some examples and instructions for this exciting new visual.)

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🚀 Power Stories

This feedback I'm about to share with you is really special. It's from Bob Umlas - a highly respected Excel expert, author of multiple books and Microsoft MVP for over 25 years!

Some months ago I received an email from Bob mentioning that he wants to enroll in our Automate with Power Query: Recipes to Solve Business Data Challenges. I was excited and a bit worried.

You see, I've had the opportunity to meet Bob in person at a Microsoft MVP summit some years back. His knowledge of Excel and VBA is second to none. I was nervous that the course wouldn't teach him much he didn't know. So you can imagine my happiness when I got this feedback from him:

Bob's review is a great reminder that learning is an ongoing process. And that learning isn't just a task; it's an exciting journey where we keep improving. This aligns perfectly with a book I started reading this week: "Mindset" by Dr. Carol S. Dweck.

Dr. Dweck introduces two mindsets: the fixed mindset, where individuals see their abilities as static, and the growth mindset, where people view their abilities as evolving through effort and learning. What truly distinguishes those with a growth mindset is their perception of learning - they see it as a positive, enriching experience, not a burden.

This perspective really resonates with me. So, inspired by Bob and the principles of a growth mindset, let's approach our learning journey with enthusiasm and an open mind.

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Got a success story about using your XelPlus skills? I’d love to hear it! Hit reply to share the details, and inspire other students 😇

See you next week,

Leila️

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