5 New Data Types in Excel That Will Save You Tons of Research Time

Have you taken a good look at Excel lately? Beyond just the normal functions that you usually use?

If not, then you may have missed all the new data types Excel has added that can save you tons of research time when looking up facts and statistics about a wide range of topics.

Microsoft 365 continues to add value to its platform that goes well beyond its core office tools and cloud storage through OneDrive. Data types in Excel is a great example of a big value-add that can save a lot of time and money.

What Are Data Types in Excel?

Data types in Excel allow you to connect your data to a large database of facts and figures. For example, say you’re looking up information about different types of trees for your landscaping business. You can spend hours looking up things like carbon-nitrogen ratio and drought tolerance, or you can tell Excel that your data type is “Plants” and have all that information populate into your spreadsheet automatically for each tree. 

Here’s how you access data types in Excel:

1. Type in your data and highlight it.
2. Choose Data from the top menu.
3. In the Data Types window, find and choose Plants.
4. Your highlighted cells will be converted to the “Plants” data type.
5. A small Data Types icon will appear next to each entry.
6. Highlight all the data cells again, and you’ll see a database icon appear at the top-right of the first selected cell.
7. Click that to get a dropdown list of available data.
8. When you click an option, the information for each selected cell will populate into the next open right-hand column.

Data Types That Are Particularly Useful for Businesses

You have over 15 data type options in Excel and they can be used for a wide range of business purposes. Here are a few that we see as the biggest time-savers and most helpful to Sturgeon Bay business owners.

Foods Data Type

If you’re a restauranteur, hotel owner, or nutritionist that plans meals for a retirement home or hospital, the Foods data type is going to be exciting for you.

This data type allows you to choose from a wide range of nutritional information, including calories, percentage of fiber, cholesterol, and much more. 

By using the “common serving” information, you can calculate out all the figures based upon the percentage of the common serving that’s in a particular recipe. This data type can save you hours of having to look up all that information. Instead, it comes in at the click of a mouse for your entire list of foods.

Medical Data Type

Does the staff at your medical office spend hours looking up basic medical information and things like ICD-9 or ICD-10 codes? You can completely change your team’s workflow and free up more time in their day for patient activities by using the Medical data type in Excel.

This data type allows you to look up information for diseases, medical tests, cognitive tasks, and more. Find ICD-9 and 10 codes, common causes, treatments, and other important information.

Terrain Data Type

For anyone in engineering, architecture, construction, or a similar field, the Terrain data type can save you a lot of valuable time looking up information about all types of different terrain.

This includes:

• Beach
• Canal
• Cave
• Dam
• Desert
• Earth impact
• Forest
• Lake
• Mine
• Mountain
• River
• And much more

Yoga Data Type

If you run or are planning to start a yoga studio, gym, or another type of health and wellness business, you can practically have your yoga brochure put together for you using the Yoga data type.

Just enter poses, such as Fierce pose, Frog pose, etc., and get everything from images of the correct body position for each one to the benefits for balance and mobility.

Instead of pouring over data online, Excel will feed all the information to you instantly when you use Data Types!

Chemistry Data Type

Laboratories and even coatings manufacturers can use the Chemistry data type to immediately populate facts about minerals, elements, chemicals, and isotopes into a spreadsheet.

You can access all types of data that can help you shortcut the time it takes you to create and evaluate different formations. It can also make putting together a Material Safety Data Sheet much easier.

You can find data such as:

• CAS number
• Density
• Electron affinity
• Known isotopes
• Melting point
• Number of protons
• Resistivity
• And more

Are You Using Microsoft 365 to the Fullest? 

Quantum PC Services can help your Sturgeon Bay area business ensure you’re not missing out on significant cost and time savers like this one in Excel. We provide expert Microsoft 365 and cloud consulting to get you fully optimized.   

Contact us today to learn more! Call 920-256-1214 or reach us online.