From ONE click to big discoveries


It starts small.

That mysterious icon you’ve always ignored?

You finally click it.

Boom! A whole new world opens up.

Or maybe you jump into an Excel course you thought was “too techy.”

Next thing you know, you’re spotting features that make your work faster and easier.

That’s how it started for Maria.

Maria took our Master Excel Power Query course. She didn’t overthink it. She watched the lessons, followed along, and started clicking, dragging and building. Right away.

Before long, she built tools that transformed her work:

✔️ A tool to turn raw data into financial reports and tax summaries.

✔️ A flexible sales commission model with multiple layers.

✔️ Countless queries to extract data in seconds.

Her words:

“Sometimes I just need to refresh; it’s so easy that months pass and then I realize how much work was saved.”

But here’s the magic. It didn’t stop there.

She followed up Power Query with the Power Pivot & DAX course.

She even brushed up on her Excel Essentials and discovered new tricks she hadn’t seen in her 15 years of using Excel.

"15 years old in Excel 😉 and I find this now… Great tool to audit files and to determine how it can be improved/automated."

The payoff?

Recently, she shared this:

“I am about to start a new position as Director of Finance very soon. My improved Excel skills are a big reason.”

One course. One decision.

It led to tools. Confidence. And a whole new chapter.

That’s the ripple effect of learning.

It starts with small discoveries.

And it can change everything.

This Black Friday, you have the chance to start your own ripple effect.

Get access to the same courses that helped Maria transform her career - at an unbeatable price.

You can choose between these packages:

  • Fundamentals
  • Mastery
  • and the combined Fundamentals+Mastery Bundle with all of our courses.

You can subscribe for yearly access (cancel anytime).

Or you can get the lifetime package to learn at your leisure.

👉 See all deals.

The offer is available until 2nd December.

🤓 Geeky News

💻 Emoji library coming to the Windows taskbar

I use Windows emojis a fair bit. They're a quick and easy way to add visual cues to an otherwise dry report.

(BTW, I'm talking about symbols and objects, not smileys, in the business context.)

To access the Windows emoji library, use the shortcut:

Win + . (Windows key + dot)

or Win + ; (Windows key + semicolon).

You've probably seen me bring it up many times.

But under every video, there's at least one comment from someone who discovers it for the first time.

After all, the shortcut isn't that obvious.

But that's about to change.

According to early reports, Microsoft is adding a new "Emoji and more" button to the system tray.

It could be part of the planned updates to the taskbar.

🤖 Copilot Agents in SharePoint

Microsoft is rolling out Agents in SharePoint.

If you have Microsoft 365 Copilot, your SharePoint sites now come with a built-in AI agent. The agent should be able to answer any question related to the site's content.

You can access it by clicking on the Copilot icon in the top right corner.

You can also create custom agents, based on specific files in the document library.

Select the files you want Copilot to "learn". Then click "Create an agent".

The agent becomes part of the SharePoint library, like any other file.

You can share the agents simply by copying the link.

If you add an agent to a Teams chat, you can @mention it to get answers about the files' contents.

It could be useful for employee onboarding, customer support, or even budget planning.

The usual caveats about double-checking AI-generated information apply. The good thing is - its answers come with footnotes, taking you directly to the source.

The SharePoint agents work within your organization's Microsoft 365 environment. They are subject to the same data privacy and security rules.

♻️ Microsoft 365 logo is changing

I bet you're more familiar with the individual Office app icons than the Microsoft 365 logo.

Unless you use the Microsoft 365 app on your phone.

Well, it's about to change anyway.

In the continued push of all things Copilot, Microsoft replaces the old logo

with a new one, that's just the Copilot icon with M365 added:

As far as we know, the Excel logo stays the same.

Well, they might tweak it soon - it's been a while since the last revamp... 😉

Best,

Leila

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Leila Gharani - XelPlus

XelPlus is a leading online education company, providing training courses for Excel, Power BI, Finance, and Google Sheets. XelPlus’ bestselling courses are popular among financial analysts, CFO’s, and business owners. Technology is changing fast. We help our members turn confusion into confidence with every skill learnt.

Read more from Leila Gharani - XelPlus
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