Notes

Given my job scope, most of the major tasks assigned to me such as UAT and Regression Testing mostly require the use of Microsoft Excel. Microsoft Excel is able to make a comparison of a huge amount of data across various spreadsheets efficiently which is useful for conducting testing.
When I first started using vlookup as a tool for extracting relevant data for comparison during UAT, I was faced with the issue of the formula not working correctly. Because of this, I was astonished as I was quite familiar with the usage of vlookup and had never encountered such a problem before. After consulting my colleague, it turned out that the formula was not working due to many of the results having the same lookup value. Therefore, by creating a unique key to lookup values with multiple criteria, the formula would be able to work correctly.
This was something new to me as in the module of Decision support with spreadsheets (DSS), I only learnt about using one lookup value to match data from another source.
Besides the formulas which I have picked up in school, I have also learnt many new functions such as using a pivot table to categorise data, as well as other unfamiliar formulas.
At the beginning of my internship, i was tasked to add up the subtotals for each component for each portfolio. Therefore, i entered the formula sumif to total up the values if the components were the same. However, my supervisor suggested creating a pivot table as a more efficient way to do it. By selecting all the data and creating a pivot table, columns can be hidden by adjusting the options on the field list. Also, if the absolute sum of values is required, the absolute function would prevent any offset.
In the group project for the module DSS, we were tasked to use functions and formulas which would aid the business in ways such as retaining staff information and reporting future forecasts for the company. However, i never imagined that Excel would be useful in the context of doing such tests as well.
Through this, i have understood that what I learnt in the module DSS were just the basics, as there are many more useful functions which I can pick up. As learning is a never ending process, I will constantly strive to pick up new technical skills to improve myself.