Course Syllabus
Welcome to PRDV433: Enhancing Spreadsheets with Generative AI
Specific information about this course and its requirements can be found below. For more general information about taking Saylor Academy courses, including information about Community and Academic Codes of Conduct, please read the Student Handbook.
Course Description
Learn how to enhance your spreadsheet workflows using generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude for formula generation, data analysis, and automation.
Course Introduction
Welcome to Enhancing Spreadsheets with AI, a course designed to show you how generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude can transform how you work with spreadsheets.
In this course, you'll discover how to leverage generative AI to automate repetitive tasks, generate complex formulas, clean and transform messy data, and perform powerful data analysis using clear, natural language instructions. Whether you're building basic formulas or automating multi-step workflows, generative AI can make your Excel work faster, smarter, and more efficient.
You'll start by learning how AI fits into the modern spreadsheet ecosystem, exploring built-in AI features, and the essentials of prompt engineering to get accurate and relevant results. Importantly, we'll also cover the security, privacy, and ethical implications of using AI in Excel. As these tools often interact with sensitive business data, you'll learn best practices for responsible use, ensuring compliance with data protection regulations, protecting confidentiality, and using AI in a trustworthy and transparent manner. As you progress, you'll master how to use AI to generate everything from basic calculations to advanced conditional logic and learn how to easily debug and explain complex formulas. We'll also dive into data cleaning and analysis, where you'll use AI to reformat inconsistent entries, handle missing values, and summarize large datasets into meaningful insights and visualizations. Then, you'll explore how to use AI for task automation, including writing macros and VBA code, so you can automate tasks, even if you have no coding experience. Throughout the course, you'll get hands-on experience with popular generative AI tools, learning how to apply them to complete tasks in Excel.
By the end of this course, you'll have the skills to combine spreadsheet expertise with generative AI tools, empowering you to make data-driven decisions faster, automate smarter, and become a highly productive Excel user in the age of intelligent automation.
This course includes the following units:
- Unit 1: Introduction to Generative AI in Excel
- Unit 2: Generating Formulas using Generative AI
- Unit 3: Data Analysis using Generative AI
- Unit 4: Automating Excel with Generative AI
Course Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:
- 0a Explain the key concepts and benefits of using generative AI tools (like ChatGPT and Claude) in spreadsheet environments
- 0b Use generative AI tools to generate and interpret basic and advanced Excel formulas based on natural language prompts
- 0c Implement AI-assisted techniques to clean, extract, and analyze spreadsheet data, including handling inconsistencies and missing values
- 0d Use prompt-based solutions to automate routine Excel tasks
- 0e Use generative AI to generate and adapt macro and VBA scripts for automating spreadsheet operations in real-world scenarios
Throughout this course, you will also see learning outcomes in each unit. You can use those learning outcomes to help organize your studies and gauge your progress.
Course Materials
This course's primary learning materials are articles, lectures, and videos.
All course materials are free to access and can be found in each unit of the course. Pay close attention to the notes that accompany these course materials, as they will tell you what to focus on in each resource and will help you understand how the learning materials fit into the course as a whole. You can also see a list of all the learning materials in this course at this link: Resources.
Evaluation and Minimum Passing Score
Only the final examination is considered when awarding you a grade for this course. To pass this course, you will need to earn 70% or higher on the final exam.
Your score on the exam will be calculated as soon as you complete it. There is a 14-day waiting period between each attempt. You may only attempt the final exam a maximum of three times. Be sure to study in between each attempt! If you do not pass the exam after three attempts, you will not complete this course.
There is also a practice exam that you may take as many times as you want to help you prepare for the final exam. The course also contains end-of-unit assessments in this course. The end-of-unit assessments are designed to help you study and do not factor into your final course grade. You can take these as many times as you want to until you understand the concepts and material covered. You can see all of these assessments at this link: Quizzes.
Continuing Education Credits
The certificate earned by passing this self-paced course displays not only the program hours you completed, but also continuing education credits (CEUs) for documenting successful completion of courses that are designed to improve the knowledge and skills of working adults. Many industries value CEUs, and now your certificate reflects them clearly, and they may be used to support career advancement or to meet professional licensing standards. This course contains 1.0 CEUs.
Tips for Success
PRDV433: Enhancing Spreadsheets with Generative AI is a self-paced course, which means that you can decide when you will start and when you will complete the course. There is no instructor or an assigned schedule to follow. We estimate that the "average" student will take 7 hours to complete this course. We recommend that you work through the course at a comfortable pace that allows you to make regular progress. It's also a good idea to schedule your study time in advance and try to stick to that schedule as best as you can.
Learning new material can be challenging, so here are a few study strategies to help you succeed:
- Take notes on the various terms, practices, and theories that you come across. This can help you put each concept into context and will create a refresher that you can use as you study later on.
- As you work through the materials, take some time to test yourself on what you remember and how well you understand the concepts. Reflecting on what you've learned is important for your long-term memory and will make you more likely to retain information over time.
Technical Requirements
This course is delivered entirely online. You will be required to have access to a computer or web-capable mobile device and have consistent access to the internet to either view or download the necessary course resources and attempt any auto-graded course assessments and the final exam.
To access the full course, including assessments and the final exam, you will need to be logged into your Saylor Academy account and enrolled in the course. If you do not already have an account, you may create one for free here. Although you can access some of the course without logging in to your account, you should log in to maximize your course experience. For example, you cannot take assessments or track your progress unless you are logged in.
For more details and guidance, please review our complete Technical Requirements and our student Help Center.
You can access all course features directly from your mobile browser, but if you have limited internet connectivity, the Saylor Academy mobile app provides an option to download course content for offline use. The app is available for iOS and Android devices.
Fees
This course is entirely free to enroll in and to access. Everything linked in the course, including textbooks, videos, webpages, and activities, is available for no charge. This course also contains a free final exam which will award you a course completion certificate.
