The training balances Jon’s highly technical expertise in Excel charting with Alex’s extensive experience in data driven business dashboarding.

Tuition for the all-day, hands-on program is $300, with discounts for early registration. This fee includes meals and breaks during the day plus all course materials. Participants need to bring their own laptops.

For more details, or to register for the class, visit the Excel Charting and Dashboarding home page.

Program Outline

Morning Session

Dashboards 1 – Alex

• Introduction
• Data Quality
• Dashboard Design
• Dashboard Elements

Advanced Excel Charting 1 – Jon

• Appropriate Chart Data
• Chart Types
• Formatting
• Combination Charts
• Dynamic and Interactive Charts

Afternoon Session

Advanced Excel Charting 2 – Jon

• Conditional Chart Formatting
• Error Bars
• Custom Chart Types You Didn’t Think Excel Could Make

Dashboards 2 – Alex

• Excel as a Dashboard Platform
• Dealing with Excel Versions
• Sparkline Add-ins
• Wrap Up

Program Details

Wednesday, June 2, 2010
8 am to 5 pm

DoubleTree Hotel
5400 Computer Drive
Westborough, MA 01581

Tuition includes conference materials, food, beverages
- $300 base price
– $250 before April 15
– $275 before May 8

Peltier Technical Services, Inc., Copyright © 2010.
 
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
 

Excel and Access Power User Workshop

Dallas TX, April 20 – April 22

Microsoft MVPs Dick Kusleika (Daily Dose of Excel) and Mike Alexander (DataPig Technologies) bring you our first ever Excel and Access Power User Workshop! The topics presented during this 3-day workshop will help you go beyond basic spreadsheets and databases, and implement robust professional-grade solutions. Learn how to:

• Move Data between Excel and Access using MSQuery and SQL
• Use ADO Scripting to build robust data entry models in Excel
• Automate Excel from Access
• Run Access Processes from Excel
• Automate Outlook Interactions
• Build client-side solutions that use SQL server as the back end
• Improve your VBA skills, going beyond simple Functions and Procedures

Excel Dashboard and Visualization Bootcamp

Dallas TX, April 27 – April 29

Microsoft MVPs Jon Peltier (Peltier Technical Services) and Mike Alexander (DataPig Technologies) are joining together again to bring you our acclaimed Excel Dashboard and Visualization Bootcamp! This 3-day boot camp is designed for Excel users who need to more effectively synthesize data into meaningful dashboards, charts, and visualizations. Learn how to:

• Synthesize data in meaningful views with advanced charting techniques
• Automate creation and formatting of charts and dashboards
• Create reports and dashboards that communicate and get noticed
• Create interactive reporting mechanisms
• Implement macro-charged reporting
• Automate the creation of PowerPoint slides directly from Excel
• Integrate external data into your reports

Don’t miss these great opportunities to learn from the experts. If you have specific questions, contact Mike Alexander.

Peltier Technical Services, Inc., Copyright © 2010.
 
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
 

Microsoft MVPs Jon Peltier (Peltier Technical Services) and Mike Alexander (DataPig Technologies) are joining together to host our third Excel Dashboard and Visualization Boot Camp! The last two events were hugely successful, and we can’t wait to do it again.

The conference will be held on Tuesday through Thursday, April 27-29, 2010, in Frisco, Texas (just north of Dallas).

This 3-day boot camp is designed for Excel users who need to more effectively synthesize data into meaningful dashboards, charts, and visualizations. The topics presented during this boot camp will introduce you to advanced techniques that will help you build and manage better reporting mechanisms. Going beyond simple tables and charts, you will learn to:

• Synthesize data in meaningful views with advanced charting techniques
• Create dashboards that communicate and get noticed
• Create interactive dashboarding mechanisms
• Implement macro-charged reporting
• Automate the creation of PowerPoint slides directly from Excel
• Integrate external data into your reports

The boot camp will follow this three day agenda, with each day comprising two in-depth classes:

Day 1: Visualization Best Practices

• Tips for Building Excel Dashboards
  Mike Alexander
• Advanced Charting Techniques
  Jon Peltier

Day 2: Building Report Interactivity

• Building Interactive Reporting
  Mike Alexander
• Automating Excel Charting with VBA
  Jon Peltier

Day 3: Integration Techniques

• Integrating Excel and PowerPoint
  Jon Peltier
• Using External Data in Excel Reporting
  Mike Alexander

For information and registration, visit the link below:

Excel Dashboard and Visualization Boot Camp
Jon Peltier and Mike Alexander
Tuesday through Thursday, April 27-29, 2010
Frisco, TX

If you have specific questions, contact Mike Alexander.

The classes I will be teaching are described in more detail on the PTS Advanced Excel Training Classes page.

Peltier Technical Services, Inc., Copyright © 2010.
 
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
 

Day 1

• Bob Umlas – Intermediate VBA
• Jon Peltier – Advanced Excel Charting

Day 2

• Jon Peltier – Using Excel and PowerPoint Together
• Bob Umlas – VBA UserForms

For a more detailed outline of these classes and more information about the locale, see Advanced Excel Conference.

Bob Umlas and Jon Peltier

For the past few years, the  Excel User Conference has held an East Coast session in Atlantic City, and Bob and I have both taken part in these conferences. This year the organizer of the conference was unable to manage the conference, so I decided to step in. Bob’s and my Advanced Excel Conference conference will be changed somewhat from previous Excel User Conferences, in that we will hold a single stream of sessions, so attendees will not have to decide which topic to attend.

Peltier Technical Services, Inc., Copyright © 2010.
 
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
 

The 2008 East Coast Excel User Conference was held last Wednesday through Friday. We met at the Trump Taj Mahal casino and hotel, I mean, resort (which doesn’t mean sort again).

The conference was organized by Damon Longworth, and the presenters included Damon as well as Bob Umlas, Bernard Liengme, and myself.

The rigorous three-day schedule included six half-day classes and eight regular sessions. There were 40 or so attendees. Most attended on all three days, and a stalwart 20 lasted until the end of the day on Friday.

Damon and Bernard share their wisdom.

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Jon stars in two of his presentations.

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A rapt audience follows the speaker closely.

Fellow blogger Jimmy Peña (right) wrote about the day he spent at the conference in My Excel User Conference Experience. Jimmy’s blog Code For Excel And Outlook Blog includes many VBA macro code samples for MS Excel and Outlook.

The conference will feature working sessions and classes designed to expand a user’s working knowledge of the dominant spreadsheet software. These sessions will be led by respected leaders in the Microsoft Excel community. Some are respected authors and consultants, and all have the MVP designation – Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP). The Microsoft Office gurus are Bernard Liengme, Damon Longworth, Bob Umlas, and myself. I’ll be holding my two charting classes: Advanced Charting Techniques and Excel Charting with VBA.

For information and registration, follow the link below. Today is the last day to register on line.

2008 US East Coast Excel User Conference
Atlantic City, New Jersey – Sept 24-26, 2008
Excel User Conferences Home Page

The conference will feature working sessions and classes designed to expand a user’s working knowledge of the dominant spreadsheet software. These sessions will be led by respected leaders in the Microsoft Excel community. Some are respected authors and consultants, and all have the MVP designation – Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP). The Microsoft Office gurus are Bernard Liengme, Damon Longworth, Bob Umlas and myself. I’ll be holding my two charting classes: Advanced Charting Techniques and Excel Charting with VBA.

For information and registration, follow the link below. Register early for a discounted fee.

2008 US East Coast Excel User Conference
Atlantic City, New Jersey – Sept 24-26, 2008
Excel User Conferences Home Page

• Advanced Charting Techniques
• Excel Charting with VBA

I’ve presented these two classes at the April 2007 Excel User Conference in Atlantic City, and again at the October 2007 Excel User Conference in St Louis. The 2008 Atlantic City Excel User Conference will be in September, and I’m planning to do it again.

These are half-day classes: outlines are provided below. Participants in each class receive a handout and a CD with lots of example workbooks. If the participants bring a laptop to class, they can work on the examples with me, which provides for better retention of the material.

Advanced Charting Techniques

• Intro and Review of Best Practices
  • Evolution and current state of charting
  • Data guidelines
  • Chart Wizard
  • Chart types, style, formatting
• Combination Charts
  • Custom chart types
  • Dummy series
  • Reference lines
  • Customized labels
  • Gantt charts, Stock charts, Panel charts
• Dynamic Charts
  • Charts that react to expanding data ranges
  • Interactive charts: chart by combo box, check box, etc.
• Axis Tricks
  • Axis types
  • Custom axis scales and gridlines
  • Broken axis scales
• Advanced Formatting
  • Conditional formatting in charts
  • Error bars
  • Custom markers and fills
• Charting Across Applications
  • Insert charts into PowerPoint or Word

Excel Charting with VBA

• VBIDE – Visual Basic Integrated Development Environment
  • Visual Basic Elements
  • Project Explorer, Properties Window, Object Browser, Immediate Window “Debug Window”
  • VBE Options
• Recording Macros
• Cleaning up Recorded Macros
• Errors in Recorded Macros
• Error Trapping
• Simple User Interface Elements
• User Forms: Advanced User Interface
• Variables
• The Chart’s Object Model
• VB Structural Elements
  • For-Next and For-Each Loops
  • Do and Do-While Loops
  • Select Case
• Chart-Specific Coding Considerations
• Modular Code: Subs and Functions
• VBA Programming Tools
• VBA for Charting Across Applications

Other Presentations

In addition to the classes above, I’ve given similar half-day classes and shorter seminars (1-2 hours) on a variety of topics:

• General Excel Tips and Tricks
• Pivot Tables
• Working over Multiple Office Applications
• Functions and Formulas
• VBA Tricks and Tips

If you would like this type of specialized training, contact me to discuss the details.

Since then, the conferences have become a regular event. They have been held in the US on the East Coast (Atlantic City several times), Midwest (Fort Worth, St Louis), West Coast (LA), and overseas in London and just this spring Down Under in Sydney. An esteemed collection of MVPs and other experts have shared their knowledge and wisdom, and everyone gathers for the classes, seminars, shared meals, and late evening bull sessions. Pictures and summaries from past events can be viewed on the Conference web site.

The next Excel User Conference is scheduled for September 24-26, 2008, in Atlantic City. Sign ups have opened for this event, and the schedule has been posted. There are the usual variety of experts and MVPs giving talks and classes (including yours truly). Check it out.