Data Analysis and Business Applications

Microsoft via Coursera

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Provider

Coursera
Pricing

Paid Course
Languages

English
Certificate

Certificate Available
Effort

10 weeks, 1 hour a week
Sessions

Self-Paced
Level

Beginner
Subtitles

English

Found in

Overview

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Unlock powerful data analysis capabilities and apply Microsoft 365 Copilot to high-impact business deliverables. You’ll learn to use natural-language commands to analyze data in Excel, automate repetitive tasks, and surface deeper insights with specialized analyst workflows. Build practical confidence in using AI to explore datasets, identify patterns, and translate raw information into business-ready outputs. Through hands-on practice, you’ll direct Copilot to perform analytical tasks, generate summaries, and support decision-making. You'll apply these capabilities to practical scenarios—including drafting status reports, creating presentations, summarizing documents, and building proposal decks—connecting data analysis with storytelling to deliver stakeholder-ready results. By the end of the course, you’ll apply Copilot across data workflows and business tasks with greater speed, consistency, and confidence. Designed for professionals in operations, finance, marketing, or project management, this course equips you to use Copilot confidently across everyday business responsibilities.

Syllabus

Excel with Copilot: Automating Repetitive Operations

This module eliminates the most time-consuming and error-prone part of working with Excel—the manual, repetitive setup work that happens before any real analysis begins. Learners will use Copilot to automate formatting, generate formulas, and apply conditional logic using plain language, freeing time for the analytical thinking that actually requires human judgment.

Excel with Copilot: Natural Language Data Analysis

Once the data is clean and formatted, the real work begins. This module teaches learners to use natural language commands to direct Copilot to perform analytical tasks that previously required advanced Excel skills—sorting, filtering, aggregating, summarizing, and identifying patterns—transforming raw data into actionable insights without writing complex queries.

Analyst Agent: Directing Deep Data Analysis

This module moves from Copilot in Excel into agent-level data analysis. Learners will practice directing the Analyst Agent to parse complex datasets and surface specific business insights, applying the same targeted prompting principles from LC 2 to a data-intensive analytical workflow.

Analyst Agent: Advanced Features and Business Relevance Evaluation

Surfacing a finding is not the same as understanding what it means for the business. This module teaches learners to apply advanced Analyst Agent features—trend analysis, comparative benchmarking, and anomaly detection—and to evaluate every finding against the business context that the agent cannot know on its own. The professional's job is not to run the analysis; it is to interrogate it.

Business Deliverables: Drafting Status Reports with Copilot

The weekly status report is one of the most time-consuming recurring deliverables in any professional role, and one of the most undervalued. This module teaches learners to use Copilot to generate accurate, well-structured status reports from data sources and project updates, applying the drafting and audit workflow to ensure every report meets the professional standard before it reaches a stakeholder.

Business Deliverables: Presentation Slides and Supporting Visuals

A strong analysis deserves a strong presentation. This module teaches learners to use Copilot in PowerPoint to generate professional presentation slides from analytical findings, applying structured prompts to produce clear, visually compelling decks that communicate insights rather than just displaying data.

Document Synthesis: Crafting Executive Summaries with Copilot

An executive summary is not a short version of a long document. It is a precision instrument, a self-contained communication that gives a senior audience exactly what they need to understand the situation and make a decision, without requiring them to read further. This module teaches learners to use Copilot to distill complex documents into accurate, audience-calibrated executive summaries that stand on their own.

Proposal Development: Building a Complete Client Proposal Deck

A client proposal is the highest-stakes document most professionals produce. It needs to be accurate, compelling, visually professional, and precisely calibrated to what the client actually needs to see. This module teaches learners to use Copilot to build a complete proposal deck from structure and content generation to visuals and final review using a workflow that produces a professional deliverable faster without cutting corners on quality.

GenAI Module: AI-Assisted Analysis Ethics

AI-assisted analysis is only as trustworthy as the professional who presents it. This module extends responsible AI principles into the specific context of data analysis, where the stakes of a misrepresented finding, a biased dataset, or an overconfident AI output can be significant. Learners will examine the ethical considerations unique to AI-assisted data work and develop a practical governance habit for every analysis they present.

Project Module: Data-Driven Business Analysis

Learners step into the role of a Senior Business Analyst at Lumen Capital Partners, a mid-market investment advisory firm that has just completed its Q3 portfolio review. The firm's Managing Director, Cassandra Veil, has asked for two things before the investor briefing on Thursday: a clear analytical summary of what the Q3 data actually shows, including what drove the performance gaps, and a proposal deck that presents the firm's recommended Q4 reallocation strategy to a high-value prospective client. The data is there. The deadline is Thursday. Your job is to turn it into something that earns trust. You will produce a Data-Driven Business Analysis Package: a two-part deliverable that integrates analytical synthesis, performance reporting, and proposal development skills into a single professional portfolio artifact.