Skill Workbench
← All courses

Excel Data Cleanup

Clean and reshape messy sales data for a reliable handoff.

beginner · About 70 minutes · 4 lessons · 8 exercises + 1 project

Start lesson →

Your finished work

A checked CSV file with the requested values and a complete answer package.

All examples use fictional, synthetic business data. Practice standard: each exercise ≥70, final project ≥80.

Try data preparation before choosing a course

Work through four original lessons, check your own output, then hand off a clean order file.

Selected public objectives from DataCamp’s Data Preparation in Excel. This is an independent original trial, with different lessons and fictional practice data.

Read a small table and edit a cell. No Excel installation is needed for this CSV trial.

Four lessons · Eight exercises · One final project · Complete materials

What this trial covers
  • Import and inspect tabular data: Quoted CSV, stable headers and empty records; no Excel import dialogs.
  • Prepare missing data: Explicit defaults and preservation of zero; no Flash Fill or inferred values.
  • Remove duplicates: Declared business keys and a keep-first policy.
  • Prepare text and dates: Whitespace and declared date formats; no full Excel text/date function library.
What you will need the full course for
  • Native Excel import dialogs, Flash Fill and workbook protection
  • Nested logical formulas and the full Excel text/date function library
  • VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP and PivotTable creation
  • The complete provider course, its exercises, instructor support and credentials

The provider course uses Microsoft Excel. This trial checks selected preparation outcomes in CSV, rather than teaching every Excel tool.

Your final handoff

A two-row order CSV with unique IDs, declared ISO dates, trimmed names, an explicit region default and the original amounts.

Final project checklist
  1. Keep one row per order_id using the first record.
  2. Return exactly order_id, date, region, name, amount.
  3. Normalize declared YYYY/MM/DD dates to YYYY-MM-DD.
  4. Use Unknown only for a missing region; trim names and preserve zero.
  5. Export your checked CSV, then compare it with the separate reference answer.
Start the first lesson → Try the final project → Get the complete files →
See the source objectives and lesson links →

The course

  1. 1. Import without losing data

    Keep quoted text and stable headers when importing CSV.

    Start lesson →

  2. 2. Handle missing values

    Fill only fields with an explicit business default.

    Start lesson →

  3. 3. Deduplicate by a business key

    Keep the first record for each order ID.

    Start lesson →

  4. 4. Standardize dates and whitespace

    Normalize declared date formats without guessing.

    Start lesson →

Final project

Handoff a clean order file

Start the project →
Get all course files →See public learning objectives →Printable course →

Preview the input

order_id,customer,note
1,Avery,"Desk, blue"
,,
2,Morgan,"He said ""ship"""