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Microsoft 365 is a subscription that includes the most collaborative, up-to-date features in one seamless, integrated experience. Microsoft 365 includes the robust Office desktop apps that you’re familiar with, like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. In December 2020, we announced LAMBDA, which allows users to define new functions written in Excel’s own formula language, directly addressing our second challenge. These newly defined functions can call other LAMBDA-defined functions, to arbitrary depth, even recursively. With LAMBDA, Excel has become Turing-complete. Excel comes with the OS (operating system) you already have, if it is Microsoft. If you use Microsoft, it should be on your computer, just search for it in the Start Menu. If you are using a Mac, you will not find 'Microsoft Excel', but a program similar to it.

One of the value propositions of subscribing to Microsoft 365 is that you continue to get new features that can make a significant difference in your productivity. That’s one of the benefits that has made the software so popular with businesses.

As of February 2020, there were approximately 595,935 companies in the U.S. using Microsoft 365 for their business workflows.

There are so many features being added to the platform regularly, it’s easy for users to miss one and not even realize a tool like Excel can now make their work even easier to do and improve business processes.

We’ve reviewed all the Excel feature updates that Microsoft has rolled out so far in 2020 to bring you the lowdown on some nifty new tricks you can do in this popular spreadsheet application.

Have You Seen These New Excel Features?

XLOOKUP Function

The XLOOKUP function in Excel allows you to find values that are located in a spreadsheet range or table.

For example, if you have a spreadsheet of employee names and ID numbers, instead of having to scroll up and down to find specific ID’s, you can do an XLOOKUP instead.

What this will allow you to do is create two cells side-by-side. One will be where you would input the employee’s name, and the second would be filled in automatically by Excel with that person’s ID.

· In an open cell type: =XLOOKUP

· Select an empty cell where you’ll put the lookup value (i.e. where you’ll type the person’s name that you want to find the ID for)

· Type in a comma

· Select where to look up the value (i.e. select a series of cells in a column where employee names are listed)

· Type in a comma

· Select the data you want to see (i.e. select the cells containing the employee ID numbers)

· Press Enter

Now you can type in any employee’s name to automatically see their ID number (or any other data you like). Here’s a handy video about XLOOKUP from Microsoft.

Workbook Statistics

Get a quick bird’s eye view of your Excel workbook with a new feature option. Just click the Review tab in Excel and you’ll see Workbook Statistics in the Proofing area.

Clicking the feature pops up a window with details on both your current sheet and entire workbook like:

· End of sheet cell

· Number of cells with data

· Number of tables

· Number of formulas

More Images, Icons, Backgrounds, Templates

Around the same time that Office 365 was renamed to Microsoft 365, thousands of new design “goodies” were added to the Office programs.

When you use the Insert > Illustrations menu option in Excel, you’ll find many royalty-free stock photos, icons, and other design items to use. Templates have also been expanded. Microsoft said they added “thousands” more of these design items to the platform for users.

Ideas in Excel

Need some help deciding how to express your data or put it into a visualization? You can now get help from Excel using the new Ideas function.

Just highlight any data that you have in your spreadsheet and from the Home tab, click Ideas. A pane on the right-hand side will open offering several different ways that you can express that data and the ability to click to add a chart to your sheet.

You can also go a step farther and ask about your data, such as “What are the sales by region?”, and Excel will answer you with a chart if all the variables are there to create it.

This can be a huge shortcut when you’re creating various KPI analytics for your team to review.

Stocks & Geography Data Types

Pull in stock and geographical information without having to do a Google search. When you convert your data to one of these data types, it will automatically connect it to an online database to pull in information.

For example, say you are building a report on cities and need to look up things like population, average household income, etc. All you have to do is convert your city names to the Geography data type, and you can bring in all that information from the online database in a click.

· To convert to a datatype, just highlight the data you want to convert, like city or state names, then on the Data tab, click either Stocks or Geography.

· Then, highlight the data again and you’ll get a box at the top of your selection. Click that, and it opens a drop down of options based on the data type you selected (like population).

· Click to choose, and the data is populated in the next open right-hand column.

Are You Making the Most of Microsoft 365?

Microsoft 365 is so feature rich that often companies miss optimization opportunities. BrainStomp experts can help you uncover those features that can save you time and money in your daily operations.

Contact us today to schedule a technology consultation! Call 260-918-3548 or reach out online.

Originally published: October 29, 2018
Updated: March 11, 2021

Please go here to search for your product's lifecycle.

The following list is a summary of products listed on the Lifecycle site, which are retiring or reaching the end of support in 2020. Upon retirement or end of support, there will be no new security updates, non-security updates, free or paid assisted support options or online technical content updates. Go here to learn about Fixed and Modern Lifecycle policies and service packs.

If you have any questions regarding support for a product, please contact your Microsoft Account Representative. If you need technical support, visit the Microsoft Support website.

Products governed by the Modern Policy

The following products and releases, governed by the Modern Policy, will retire in 2020.

Products governed by the Fixed Policy

The following products and releases, governed by the Fixed Policy, will end support in 2020.

Products moving to Extended Support

The following products will be moving from Mainstream to Extended Support in 2020. Extended Support includes security updates at no cost, and paid non-security updates and support. Additionally, Microsoft will not accept requests for design changes or new features during the Extended Support phase.

Change Log

Microsoft Excel 2020

^{September 2019 edits
ADDED: Windows Analytics, Windows Storage Server 2008 (all editions), Internet Explorer 10, StorSimple Data Manager, Visio Services in SharePoint Online
ADDED: Windows 10, version 1903 (Enterprise, Home, Pro, Pro for Workstations, IoT Enterprise) and Windows Server, version 1903 (Datacenter, Standard, IoT Enterprise)
EDITED: Exchange Server 2010 (all editions) support extended from January 14, 2020 to October 13, 2020}

Microsoft Excel 2020 Book Pdf

^{January 2020 edits
ADDED: Exchange Server 2010, Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.6 for Remote Desktop Services, Expression Studio 4, Windows 10 Pro Education,
EDITED: Visual Basic 2010 Express, Visual Basic C# 2010 Express, Visual Basic C++ 2010 Express, Visual Web Developer 2010 Express, Expression Encoder 4, Expression Web 4 date updated to July 14, 2020
EDITED: OneNote 2016 Mainstream Support extended from October 13, 2020 to October 10, 2023
EDITED: specific editions removed, 'all editions' added to parent listing}

^{February 2020 edits
ADDED: Dynamics 365 Business Central on-premises, Microsoft Identity Manager 2016 Service Pack 1}

^{April 2020 edits
EDITED: Windows 10, version 1709 (Enterprise, Education, IoT Enterprise) extended to October 13, 2020
EDITED: Windows 10, version 1809 (Home, Pro, Pro Education, Pro for Workstation, IoT Core), Windows Server version 1809 (Datacenter Core, Standard Core) extended to November 10, 2020
REMOVED: PerformancePoint Services in SharePoint Server 2010, Project Server 2010, SharePoint Server 2010 (support extended from October 13, 2020 to April 13, 2021)}

^{June 2020 edits
REMOVED: Windows Defender Antivirus for Windows 10}

^{July 2020 edits
ADDED: Expression Studio Ultimate 4
EDITED: Visual Basic 2010 Express, Visual C# 2010 Express, and Visual C++ 2010 Express corrections}

Microsoft Excel 2020 For Mac

^{March 2021 edits
REMOVED: Service Pack section. These will be tracked under Fixed Policy EOS
REMOVED: Visio Services in SharePoint Online extended from September 30, 2020 to September 30, 2021
REMOVED: Windows 10, version 1803 (Enterprise, Education, IoT Enterprise); support extended from November 10, 2020 to May 11, 2021
ADDED: Windows 10 Mobile Enterprise, released in October 2017
ADDED: Products that have announced EOS dates since publishing}