Many busy professionals are on a constant quest for productivity. Yet, the solution may be right at your fingertips.

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 today's Between the Sheets, we're exploring:

• Quick wins: Useful Excel features for busy people
• Improvements to Excel's web scraping capabilities
• Copilot coming to Microsoft 365

It's been a while since I posted a YouTube video.

I've been busy working on something exciting. As Between the Sheets subscribers you'll be the first to read about it, so keep an eye out. 😊

Meanwhile, I have some really cool tips for you this week! So without further ado...

​5 hidden Excel features for busy people​

​

Dive into my latest video to discover my favorite Excel timesaver features:

1. Quick-Jump Bookmarks: No more endless scrolling in your large files to find what you're looking for. Discover a secret shortcut to jump around your file and bookmark special sections.
2. AI Powered Data Analysis: Located on the Home tab, this feature allows you to ask your data questions and get exactly what you need.
3. One-Click Forecasting: If automatically forecasting future sales sounds good to you, you should definitely check out the Forecast Sheet on the Data tab. You get your forecast with a single click - plus it accounts for seasonality!
4. Quick Analysis Tool: Meet Control+Q - that's all you need to immediately add conditional formatting like data bars or color scales to your data - you can also use it to quickly add sparklines, charts and even running totals!
5. The ultimate timesaver - Power Query 👑: Complex data transformations in a couple of simple clicks? Don't miss out on Excel's best tool. With Power Query you can import data from the web (more on that below), from PDF documents, csv files, and many other sources! You can clean messy data with simple clicks instead of programming complicated VBA macros which is something I used to do. This tool has certainly been a major time-saver for me.
   ​

🤓 Geeky News

Excel Power Query Web connector gets even more powerful 🦾

Power Query only keeps getting better. Now they've enhanced the "Get Data From Web" experience by adding two new features:

1. Suggested Tables and
2. Add Table Using Examples.

Both were already available in Power BI, and now they're coming to Excel for Office 365.

Suggested Tables auto-detects and structures tables even if they are not formatted as tables on the website.

You get a preview before you make a selection.

Add Table Using Examples opens an interactive window, where you can preview the content of the Web page.

You then enter a couple of sample values of the data you want to extract. Once Power Query picks up the pattern, it extracts all the rest.

Queries and Connections pane in Excel for the Web 🕸️

On the other hand, Power Query in Excel for the Web is still very limited, but it gradually gets new features added.

It recently got the Queries & Connections pane so you can now rename, delete, duplicate and organize existing queries online.

✈️ Microsoft 365 Copilot is generally available

On 1st November, Microsoft 365 Copilot became generally available for enterprise customers worldwide.

Current subscribers to the E3 and E5 Microsoft 365 license can purchase Copilot for $30 per user per month, with a minimum of 300 users.

Copilot lets you use generative AI directly in the familiar Office apps without compromising the security of your organization's data.

It already speaks multiple languages, with even more to come. You can use it to draft emails, summarize meeting notes, create presentations, or jumpstart Excel analysis.

If you're one of the lucky ones to get it first, let us know what you think of it. Just reply and share. Team XelPlus is curious.

​

🚀 Power Stories

Congratulations on completing Master Excel Power Query - Beginner to Pro, Travis! 🎉 Your enthusiasm for learning is truly inspiring.

I'm constantly awed by the vibrant community we've built around the XelPlus courses. You keep me motivated and inspired. Here's to learning!

You've got the Power, Elliot! 💪 Congrats on powering through the 3 Power courses and adding the Fast Track to Power BI certificate to your portfolio, and - more importantly - adding Power BI to your skillset!

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

P.S. Don't forget, the Global Excel Summit 2024 is just around the corner and early-bird ticket prices are ending soon mid-November. Whether you’re joining us in London or tuning in online, use the code LEILA to grab a special 20% discount on top of the early bird tickets. More info here.

Want more?

▶️ Subscribe on YouTube​

🖇️ Follow us on LinkedIn​

🥇 Join 400,000+ students in our courses​

📣 Want to sponsor Between the Sheets? Get in touch here.

This newsletter contains affiliate links, which give us a small commission on any purchase made at no cost to you. This helps us run Between the Sheets and bring you updates like this. Thank you for your support!