When you upgrade to Excel 2007, you and your staff may be in for quite a shock. The initial reaction of most people is: "where is everything?" Bearing this in mind, you may well find that a training course on Excel 2007 is a good investment. The training should first of all get you past the initial state of confusion caused by the fact that 2007 looks so different from previous versions. Then it should give you some guidance on the new features in Excel 2007 such as the enhancements to charting and graphics, functions and conditional formatting.

At the end of any training on Excel 2007, you should feel that you have grasped the logic of the new interface and be able to navigate the ribbon and find all the basic commands. You should be getting used to doing things the Office 2007 way rather than the Office 2003 way.

In addition to this, however, you will want to learn the new features that Excel 2007 has to offer: the stuff that either wasn't available in previous versions or which has undergone considerable enhancement.

The number of cells in an Excel 2007 worksheet is now about 1000 times bigger than in previous versions. If you book training on Excel 2007, you should learn ways of taking advantage of this new space and also pick some tips on efficient navigation and management of this huge area.

Pivot tables are a key area where Excel 2007 has made improvements. Ensure that any Excel 2007 training that you book includes first of all an explanation of pivot table essentials (pivot tables often confuse users) and then moves on to the new ways of creating and manipulating pivot tables offered in Excel 2007.

Charts and graphics are a great way to add impact to your Excel reports. Does your organisation use them? If so, make sure that your Excel 2007 training course incorporates gives you plenty of practice examples in using Excel 2007's new features to create and manipulate charts and graphics. You should become a dab hand at using the new charting ribbons: the format ribbon, the design ribbon and the layout ribbon. Do you need advanced features too? If so, you should also be looking to learn about pivot charts, scatter charts and adding trendlines to your charts.

Another feature that has been developed in Excel 2007 is conditional formatting. Be sure that any training you have on Excel 2007 includes some insight into the use of Excel 2007's powerful new conditional formatting features especially Data Bars and Color Scale.

Formulas are the lifeblood of Excel. They analyse the raw data entered in other cells and provide most of Excel's awesome power. You should definitely request that your Excel 2007 training shows you the improvements that have been made to the entry of formulas in the formula bar and the key new functions that have been introduced, especially AverageIf, SumIfs, and IfError