By Hiran de Silva

“Advanced Excel” is one of the most overused — and misunderstood — terms in the professional world. It shows up in job descriptions, resumes, training course brochures, and LinkedIn endorsements. But ask ten different people what it means, and you’ll likely get ten different answers: PivotTables, macros, Power Query, XLOOKUP, DAX, dashboards, VBA… the list goes on.

So what is “Advanced Excel”? And perhaps more importantly, what isn’t it?

The Illusion of Advancement

For many, “Advanced Excel” simply means familiarity with features they’ve not yet learned. To someone comfortable with SUM and IF, VLOOKUP feels advanced. To someone who’s mastered VLOOKUP, PivotTables seem like the next level. For another, Power Query, Power BI, or DAX might appear to be the pinnacle. It’s a moving target — subjective and relative to the observer’s current skill level.

This relativity is part of the problem. “Advanced” becomes synonymous with “recent,” “complicated,” or “technical,” regardless of whether it’s useful, relevant, or even appropriate for the job at hand.

The Three Faces of “Advanced Excel”

Let’s break it down into three common interpretations:

1. Feature-Based “Advancement”

This is the most prevalent understanding. Here, “Advanced Excel” means knowledge of:

• PivotTables and PivotCharts
• Power Query (Get & Transform)
• Power Pivot and Data Models
• Macros and VBA
• XLOOKUP, FILTER, LET, LAMBDA, etc.
• Dynamic Arrays
• Conditional Formatting and Data Validation
• Advanced charting

It’s the kind of “checklist advancement” popular in courses and training programs — and often the metric recruiters use when they screen candidates.

But this approach is superficial. It teaches features, not solutions. You can tick all the boxes and still not solve a single real-world business problem effectively.

2. Speed and Fluency

To some, “advanced” means being fast. Keyboard shortcuts, efficient navigation, lightning-speed formatting, rapid error-fixing. These are valuable workplace skills, to be sure — but they don’t necessarily make someone advanced. They’re more akin to typing speed in Word than actual writing skill.

It’s not about what you know, but how quickly and smoothly you can do it. Think of this as “Excel fluency.”

3. Problem-Solving and Process Thinking

This is the true — but least taught — meaning of “Advanced Excel.”

It’s about solving real business problems:

• Designing templates that scale
• Automating repeatable workflows
• Connecting to live data sources and eliminating manual updates
• Modeling business logic in a way that reflects how the organization thinks
• Building systems that others can understand and maintain

Here, “advanced” means architectural thinking. It’s not about flashy formulas, but rather clarity, maintainability, and systemic thinking. It’s knowing when not to use a feature — or when Excel itself is not the right tool.

The Myth of “Advanced Excel” as a Destination

One of the biggest misconceptions is that “Advanced Excel” is a fixed stage you reach. Like leveling up in a video game, some imagine there’s a final level where you’re certified as an “Excel Ninja.”

In reality, Excel has no ceiling — and no end state. What looks advanced to one user is elementary to another. More importantly, the most valuable Excel practitioners are not those who hoard the most functions, but those who solve the right problems in the simplest, most elegant ways.

The Enterprise Blind Spot

Ironically, many so-called “Advanced Excel” courses completely ignore the most powerful feature in Excel: its ability to serve as a front-end to databases and systems. Excel can behave as an application interface, a process automation platform, and even a client in a client-server architecture. These enterprise-scale capabilities are rarely taught — largely because they are misunderstood or entirely unknown to those who focus solely on new features or personal productivity tricks.

True advancement, in this light, is about scalability, maintainability, and process integration.

So What Should We Call It?

Maybe it’s time to retire the term “Advanced Excel” altogether. Instead, we might speak of:

• Enterprise Excel: for scalable, multi-user, integrated solutions.
• Applied Excel: for real-world, business-first problem solving.
• Architectural Excel: for strategic spreadsheet engineering.
• Fluent Excel: for those with intuitive speed and control.

Ultimately, the goal isn’t to master every formula or function. It’s to use Excel to design solutions that matter — and to do so in a way that is understandable, maintainable, and valuable to others.

That’s not just “advanced.” That’s professional.

In Summary

“Advanced Excel” is a vague label that often masks deeper issues of miseducation, misapplication, and misplaced priorities. It’s time to redefine it — not by features used, but by problems solved, systems built, and processes improved.

If you’re serious about Excel, stop asking whether you’re “advanced.” Start asking: What can I solve? What can I simplify? What can I scale?

Because that’s what Excel — at its best — was always meant to do.

ABSTRACT

Beyond Advanced Excel

The provided text examines the commonly used term “Advanced Excel” in the business world, highlighting its misunderstood and subjective nature. It argues that while many define advancement by knowing specific features like PivotTables or XLOOKUP, a more accurate understanding involves speed and fluency, and ultimately, the ability to solve real business problems through architectural thinking and process design. The article suggests retiring the term “Advanced Excel” in favor of descriptions like Enterprise, Applied, Architectural, or Fluent Excel to better reflect problem-solving and scalability rather than simply knowing a list of features.