Lab Assignment 1 Description – Spreadsheet assignment to be done using Microsoft Excel

Matching Training to Software Use

3-D Graphing

You have the responsibility for managing software training for Sales, Accounting, and Operations
Department workers in your organization. You have surveyed the workers to get a feel for the
amounts of time spent using various packages, and the results are shown below. The values shown
are the total number of workers in each department and the total weekly hours the department’s
workers spend using each software package. You have been asked to prepare a spreadsheet
summarizing this data and comparing the use of the various packages across departments.

a. Create a spreadsheet illustrating each application’s average use per department. To do this,
you will first enter the data shown below. Then compute the average weekly spreadsheet use
by dividing spreadsheet hours by the number of Sales workers. Do this for each department.
Repeat these three calculations for both database and presentation use. Round results to the
nearest 1/100th.
b. Create a three-dimensional bar graph illustrating the averages by department and software
package.
c. A committee has been formed to plan software training classes at your company. Prepare a
slide presentation with four slides illustrating your findings. The first slide should serve as an
introduction to the data. The second slide should contain a copy of the original data table
(without the averages). The third slide should contain a copy of the three-dimensional bar
graph from the previous answer. The fourth slide should contain your conclusions regarding key
applications per department. Use professional labels, formatting, and backgrounds.

Department Employees Spreadsheet Database Presentations

Sales 225 410 1100 650
Operations 75 710 520 405
Accounting 30 310 405 50

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Submit both the spreadsheet file for parts (a) and (b) and the short PowerPoint presentation file for part (c).

Additional instructions and helpful hints

1. The main purpose of this assignment is not only to familiarize you with the business aspects of
the spreadsheet, but also to give you a chance to learn how to use Microsoft Excel. The problem
requires you to match training with software use. You need to first evaluate software usage per
department and then analyze which departments will benefit from which software package
training. e.g; if a department uses a particular software a lot, then training may help them further
increase efficiency. If you are new to Excel, be sure you complete at least one of the tutorials (see
below or the main page for link) before beginning this assignment.

2. For part (c) you should use Microsoft PowerPoint to prepare a short slide presentation. Submit
both the spreadsheet file for parts (a) and (b) and the short PowerPoint presentation file for part (c).
3. Some additional useful clarifications:

a) The slide presentation you prepare for part (c) is just that, a presentation of the information you
have prepared in parts (a) and (b).

b) A common mistake a few students make, even with my comments elsewhere about it is: when
the problem description says in part (a) "compute the average weekly ...by dividing ...." you are not
supposed to do these calculations by hand - these are to be done by the spreadsheet program! You
must figure out how to put in the right formulas, in other words, you are instructing the
spreadsheet - through the formulas - to do these calculations.

4. Excel and Access Tutorials:

You may use any of the Office 2003/2007/2010/2013/2016 etc. versions of Excel and Access software.
The following Microsoft website is a good resource for learning about Excel and Access.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/FX100565001033.aspx