Experienced business people can tell a lot about numbers just by
looking at them to see if they "look right." That is, the sales figures
are about where they’re supposed to be for a particular hour, day, or
month; the average seems about right; and sales have increased from year
to year. When you need more than an informal assessment, however, you
can use the tools in the Analysis ToolPak.
If you don’t see the Data Analysis item in the Analysis group on
the Data tab, you can install it. To do so, click the File tab, and then
click Options. In the Excel Options dialog box, click Add-Ins to display
the Add-Ins page. At the bottom of the dialog box, in the Manage list,
click Excel Add-Ins, and then click Go to display the Add-Ins dialog
box. Select the Analysis ToolPak check box and click OK.
Tip
You might be prompted for the Microsoft Office system
installation CD. If so, put the CD in your CD drive, and click
OK.
After the installation is complete, the Data Analysis item
appears in the Analysis group on the Data tab.
You then click the item representing the type of data analysis you
want to perform, click OK, and use the commands in the resulting dialog
box to analyze your data.
In this exercise, you’ll use the Analysis ToolPak to generate
descriptive statistics of driver sorting time data.
Set Up
-
On the Data tab, in the
Analysis group, click Data Analysis.
The Data Analysis dialog box opens.
-
Click Descriptive
Statistics, and then click OK.
The Descriptive Statistics dialog box opens.
-
Click in the Input Range
field, and then select cells C3:C17.
$C$3:$C$17 appears in the Input Range
field.
-
Select the Summary
statistics check box.
-
Click OK.
A new worksheet that contains summary statistics about the
selected data appears.
Clean Up
Save the DriverSortTimes workbook, and then close it.
