Transform Excel Data with Claude AI For Actionable Insights

If you can pull the numbers but struggle to say what they mean, or you've sat through presentations where someone recited figures without ever answering "so what?", this class is about that gap. You'll use Claude to analyze datasets, surface trends, and run comparisons across worksheets and time periods, then work toward executive summaries, talking points, and meeting prep. The hands-on work focuses on the prompts that produce useful analysis and on pushing back when Claude's first pass is too vague to present. The aim is to practice turning data into a story your audience can follow.

Learners will have the opportunity to:

1. Ask Claude to compare data across worksheets and time periods and surface what actually changed
2. Apply structured frameworks conversationally (variance commentary, SWOT, and "what changed and why") without building the framework by hand
3. Draft an executive summary, a set of talking points, and meeting prep from a single dataset
4. Practice recognizing when Claude's first response is too generic and experiment with follow-up prompts that sharpen it
5. Ground every insight in cell-level citations so an audience can verify the story
6. Work through the difference between a descriptive recap ("graduate enrollment was up 8%") and genuine analysis ("up 8% in Engineering but down across three other schools")
7. Explore how to frame a prompt to get interpretation rather than description
8. Practice deciding when to accept Claude's draft and when to push for a second pass

Topics

- Comparing data across worksheets and time periods
- Conversational frameworks: variance commentary, SWOT, "what changed and why"
- Drafting executive summaries, talking points, and meeting prep
- Sharpening vague first responses with follow-up prompts
- Cell-level citations in a presentation context
- Descriptive recap versus genuine analysis