Office 2016 New Features. Excel

Introducing... Microsoft Excel 2016 That's right, Microsoft are about to release Office 2016. While most of us have at some stage upgraded to Office 2010 or 2013, many are still using the 2007 version or worse, 2003! When Microsoft changed to the ribbon in 2007 it heralded a dramatically new Office look with many new office features. From my training experience over the last five years I know that for a lot of people this was a painful experience, a transformational change which required old, loved knowledge to be discarded and the new environment embraced. I heard of some companies paying programmers thousands to develop bespoke toolbars to reflect the 2003 environment, a decision they may have regretted upon discovery of the Quick Access Toolbar and the Customise Ribbon features. So here comes Microsoft Office 2016 (it's rumoured to be realised in 2015), so what are we in for this time around, another dramatic life changing event? Unfortunately for people like me who make a living training others how to use the new stuff, the answer is not really. In fact on the surface Microsoft Excel 2016 and Microsoft Office 2016 in general pretty much looks like 2013. Under the bonnet there are a few new features but the biggest change is the ever increasing presence of BI (Business Intelligence) features. Many of these features have existed since 2010 as Add-Ins, but now they are becoming part of the standard ribbon interface, making the features more likely to be used in the work environment. That's good news for users as these features offer data analysis capability well beyond building a basic pivot table. On the other hand it's not such good news if you are one of those people that like to resist a bit of change. As part of the standard ribbon some of these BI features will quickly become tools commonly used in many work environments. Let's have a look at the 2013 and 2016 ribbons side by side. http://www.seveninstitute.co.uk/microsoft-excel-tutorial/office-2016-new-features-excel