Analyzing Data with Descriptive Statistics


Experienced businesspeople 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 off-the-cuff assessment, however, you can use the tools in the Analysis ToolPak.

If you don't see the Data Analysis item in the Data tab's Analysis group, you can install it. To do so, click the Microsoft Office Button and then click Excel Options. In the Excel Options dialog box, click Add-Ins to display the Add-Ins page. At the bottom of the dialog box, click the Manage field down arrow, click Excel Add-Ins, and then click Go to display the Add-Ins dialog box. Select the Analysis ToolPak check box and click OK.

Note

You might be prompted for the Microsoft Office system installation CD-ROM. If so, put the CD-ROM in your CD-ROM 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 controls 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.

USE the Driver Sort Times workbook in the practice file folder for this topic. This practice file is located in the My Documents\Microsoft Press\Excel SBS\Alternatives folder.

OPEN the Driver Sort Times workbook.


1.

On the Data tab, in the Analysis group, click Data Analysis.

The Data Analysis dialog box appears.

2.

Click Descriptive Statistics and then click OK.

The Descriptive Statistics dialog box appears.

3.

Click in the Input Range field and position the mouse pointer near the top of the Sorting Minutes column header. When the pointer changes to a downward-pointing black arrow, click the header.

$C$3:$C$17 appears in the Input Range field.

4.

Select the Summary Statistics check box.

5.

Click OK.

A new worksheet that contains summary statistics about the selected data appears.

CLOSE the Driver Sort Times workbook.

CLOSE Excel 2007.





MicrosoftR Office ExcelR 2007 Step by Step
MicrosoftВ® Office ExcelВ® 2007 Step by Step (Step By Step (Microsoft))
ISBN: 073562304X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 143
Authors: Curtis Frye

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