What Are Excel Functions?

Last Updated on April 25, 2024

Excel software from Microsoft has become an indispensable part of today’s data analysis thanks to its innovative features and capabilities. So, if you want to succeed in your career as a data analyst or run an enterprise that handles data analysis tasks, you must be proficient in Excel. In addition, you must be aware of all essential Excel functions that you can carry out using this software in your organization.

Professional training can help you become an Excel expert. The various Excel courses the trainers offer will help you understand the multiple functions performed by this program and how they’ll benefit your business.

For instance, you’ll learn how to use the WorkBook in Excel. In addition, this article outlines the various Excel functions you can perform in your organization.

Essential Excel Functions

Since its official release in 1985, Excel has undergone numerous advancements, with new and more innovative features being added periodically to improve this program’s overall user experience and effectiveness. Therefore, Microsoft continues developing new Excel functions and upgrading existing ones to improve its usability. Microsoft currently has at least ten main Excel functions that it categorizes by their functionality.

SUM Function

The SUM function is used to add values to your spreadsheet. For example, you can add individual values, ranges, cell references, or a combination of the three. Here are two examples of how you can use the SUM function:

• ‘=SUM(A2:A10)’ Adds the values in cells A2:10.
• ‘=SUM(A2:A10, C2:C10)’ Adds the values in cells A2:10, as well as cells C2:C10.

IF Function

This Excel function is used to return one value if a condition is true and another value if it is false. The IF function is one of the most commonly used Excel functions, enabling you to make logical comparisons between values and your expectations. For instance, the IF statement can have a set of results, with the first indicating if the comparison of values is true and the second showing if the comparison is false.

LOOKUP Function

The LOOKUP function allows you to reference a cell to match values in another row or column against the cell, thus enabling you to recover the matching results from the corresponding rows and columns. In short, you can use this function to look in a particular row or column and identify a value from the same spot in the second row or column.

VLOOKUP Function

You can use the VLOOKUP function to identify items in a table or a series by row. For instance, you can look for an employee’s name by their employment number or trace their phone number by searching for their last name.

MATCH Function

The MATCH function is used for searching for items in various cells and returning the relative locations of the items in the sequence.

Choose Function

This Excel function allows you to select values depending on the index number. For instance, if value 1 through value 7 is weekdays, the CHOOSE function yields one of the days when you use any of the seven numbers as index_num.

DATE Function

This Excel function is used to yield the sequential serial number representing particular dates. It becomes particularly necessary when the day, month, and year are supplied by formulas or cell references. For example, if you have a worksheet with dates in an unrecognizable format like YYYMMDD, the DATE function will allow you to calculate the number of days, months, and years between two dates.

DAYS Function

The DAYS function is necessary for yielding the number of days between dates.

FIND and FINDB Functions

These functions help you to locate a string of text within another string of text. These functions will yield the number of the starting location of the first string of text from the first character of the second string of text.

INDEX Function

The INDEX function helps to yield values or references to values from within tables or ranges.

Lastly, the Excel versions released before 2010 had other different functions that have since been replaced with new ones that offer more precision, and their names mirror their usage. However, some of the old Excel functions are still compatible with the earlier models of Excel. 

If you need to enhance your Excel skills to carry out the functions mentioned above, ONLC is ready to help!