Introduction to Problem Solving with Microsoft Office 2003

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Introduction to Problem Solving with Microsoft
Office 2003

• Youve got to seize the opportunity if it is
  presented to you.
  Clive Davis

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About This Book andMicrosoft 2003

• Focus of book
• How to use Microsoft Office 2003 to
• Organize ideas and information
• Solve business problems
• Manage data
• Problem-solving concepts and tasks
• Microsoft 2003
• Suite of programs including Word, Excel, Access,
  and PowerPoint

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Sections of the Book

1. Organizing and Communicating Information
2. How to Solve Problems with Excel
3. How to Solve Problems with Access
4. Integration
5. Capstone Projects

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Section 1 Organizing and Communicating
Information

• Managing files
• Conducting business research on the Web
• Composing, formatting, and distributing business
  documents (Word) and presentations (PowerPoint)

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Section 2 How to Solve Problems with Excel

• Spreadsheet program used to display, analyze, and
  manipulate numeric data
• Widely used in business to support decision making

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Section 3 How to Solve Problems with Access

• Database program used to maintain, organize, and
  retrieve related data, and then sort, filter, and
  display the information to serve business needs
• Supports decision making

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Section 4 Integration

• The ability to share information among programs
• Main advantage of using Office
• How to make data transportable and universal by
  using HTML and XML documents on their own and
  incorporated into Access databases and Excel
  spreadsheets
• How to integrate information from Word,
  PowerPoint, Excel, and Access to create
  sophisticated documents

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Section 5 Capstone Projects

• Pose realistic business problems
• Ask you to use the tools described in the book to
  solve the problem

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Taking aProblem-Solving Approach
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Problem Recognition

• Recognize and identify the problem
• Describe and analyze the problem

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Analyzing the Problem
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Analyzing the Problem

• Data gathering
• Consider credibility, reliability, and accuracy
• Pre-processing
• Manipulate data into appropriate format
• Cleansing
• Identify and correct data corruption
• Filtering
• Remove data that isnt useful or necessary

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Problem Statement

• Key characteristic
• Some missing piece of information is identified
  that is required to solve the problem or make a
  decision

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Analyzing the Solution
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Understanding the Problem

• What data is needed and what data or information
  is already known?
• Is the data or information reliable and accurate?
• What is the likely range of potential solutions?
• What types of output are required? (e.g., single
  value, table, printed report, Web page)

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Formulating a Solution Plan

• Plan how to use Office by considering the steps
  you need to take to solve the problem
• Numerical calculation
• Determining if data meet specific criteria
• Organizing information or results in a specific
  format
• Combining several of these steps
• Place data in well-organized, easy-to-understand
  layouts

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Implementing the Solution

• Input data
• Process data
• Depends on the problem and the proposed solution
• Configure desired output

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Implementing the SolutionWhat You Must Know

• Spreadsheets
• How to correctly write formulas and functions and
  use spreadsheet tools
• Databases
• What kind of information is stored in the
  database and how it is organized
• Business documents and presentations
• How to organize and articulate the information so
  that it meets the needs of your audience

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Evaluating the Solution

• Check the results to ensure they are correct

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Problem

• You work in the human resources department of
  McNamara Construction Inc. a construction
  company. Although employees receive complete
  benefit information when first hired , they
  frequently are unaware of the many benefits
  available to them other than health insurance.
  You task is to design a newsletter to keep
  employees informed of the many benefits provided.
• Benefits available
• Vacation and sick days accrual policy
• Flexible spending accounts
• 401 K and retirement benefits
• Maternity and Family Paid Leave
• Online training for OSHA certifications