Analysts frequently sort and filter their data to enhance manageability and to spot patterns, trends, and anomalies. While Excel already facilitates this task, Copilot further streamlines the process.
To participate, please download the exercise file provided below. It contains details on a specific product line. I would like this data to be organized and refined based on criteria such as price and category, among others.
Ensure this file is properly configured to work with Copilot before proceeding.
I’ll activate Copilot, and the first action I’ll take is to navigate to the “Sort and Filter” section to clarify our intentions to Copilot.
Let’s begin by sorting the items by price, from highest to lowest. You’ll notice that Copilot comprehends and reacts to this request. Additionally, the sort button in the header of price will be adjusted, making it evident that the data has been organized accordingly:
To organize the items by Status and then by Price, ensuring that both active and discontinued SKUs are grouped accordingly, create a query that directs Copilot to perform these steps:
You can continue sorting by multiple fields in any order you choose, either ascending or descending, by following this pattern.
Now, let’s shift our focus to filtering. Rather than placing discontinued SKUs to the bottom as we did with sorting, perhaps we’d prefer to hide them completely. So, we’ll instruct Copilot to exclude rows where Status is marked as DISCONTINUED:
Similarly, we can filter by a quantity by asking Copilot to retain only the records where the Price is greater than 2:
Next, we could combine filter statements to, for example, keep only the records where Price is greater than 2 and Status is DISCONTINUED:
If you’ve finished with this view and want to remove all filters, just ask Copilot to clear them.
Want to sort and filter at the same time? No problem. Here, I’ll select rows where the Status equals Active and then sort them by Variety from A-Z.
As you can observe, Copilot revolutionizes the process of sorting and filtering data in Excel. What used to be a manual task has now become an intuitive, natural language-driven interaction. This allows analysts to quickly organize and examine their data, leading to enhanced insights.
Sure, you might think that doing this in Excel is already easy enough, especially if you’re an experienced Excel user. But try to recall a time when you genuinely weren’t sure how to sort by multiple fields at once in Excel. I remember experiencing that myself! For such an audience, Copilot in Excel offers tremendous value. As it learns and evolves, it will begin to accommodate use cases for more experienced Excel users as well.
Do you have any questions about starting to work with your Excel data in Copilot? Please, don’t hesitate to ask in the comments.
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