Using Excel to Support Laboratory and Plant Operations

6.0 Contact Hours (water or wastewater)

The Powerful Software Program You Already Own
Sophisticated, user friendly, and already on your desktop. Microsoft Excel has unlimited potential for your laboratory and treatment plant. Excel may be your only software, or it might be a supplement to a LIMS or operator program. Regardless of how you use Excel, you may be under-utilizing its capabilities to perform calculations, track quality control activities, or organize tasks in your facility. This course will help you think beyond the basic spreadsheet and unlock Excel’s power to support your laboratory and plant operations.

Who Should Attend
Operators, analysts, managers, and superintendents who work in water and wastewater treatment plants.

Course Description
Excel is an intuitive program that effortlessly performs simple tasks and handles complicated ones with ease. But you cannot maximize Excel until you know all it can do. This six-hour course will cover formulas, auto-filling data, sorting and filtering, formatting, and protecting cells. The activities are geared to the tasks you actually perform, such as specific formulas for BOD or TSS. The course is set up as a workshop, so you can follow along on a computer.  As practice, you will be asked to reproduce an activity using the skills you learned. At the end of the day, you will be given a detailed manual for future reference.  This course assumes a basic understanding of Excel (opening the program, typing in cells, saving), and it will focus exclusively on Microsoft Excel 2007. The same basic tenets apply to Microsoft 2003, making the course valuable regardless of the version you use. This course will show you how Excel can help you save time, reduce errors, and increase efficiency.

Learning Objectives
After completing this course, participants should be able to:

• Run basic formulas.
• Use “If, Then” reasoning.
• Design formulas for specific laboratory tests.
• Fill cells using auto-fill formulas.
• Sort and filter data.
• Implement conditional formatting.
• Format the spreadsheet for aesthetic appeal.
• Protect individual cells.
• Insert charts and graphics.
• Replicate exercises and adapt skills to on-the-job scenarios.

Food and materials included in registration fee.

Your Partner in Success
Alloway is a full-service commercial environmental testing laboratory located in Lima, Marion, and Mansfield, Ohio. Alloway provides analytical and field services to municipalities, industries, consultants, and other commercial laboratories. In addition, Alloway offers software, seminars, laboratory development, and training. With more than 25 years of experience, Alloway is a total laboratory solution and your resource for defensible data.