Claude in Excel: Sample Use Case — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:02This is Claude for Excel. So you may be
2. 0:05familiar with Claude in other contexts.
3. 0:08Uh Claude has a mobile app and a desktop
4. 0:10application uh as well as our website
5. 0:12claude.ai and even Claude Code. But
6. 0:15Claude is also available inside the
7. 0:18environment that you use the most inside
8. 0:20your Excel workbooks. And I want to show
9. 0:22you today what that looks like. So here
10. 0:24I've got uh an HR headcount plan. Let's
11. 0:26say you just inherited this headcount
12. 0:28planning model from a colleague. It's
13. 0:30got multiple tabs, formulas linking
14. 0:31everywhere, and you need to get up to
15. 0:33speed. Um, but instead of clicking
16. 0:34through each sheet trying to piece it
17. 0:36together, let's just ask Claude. So, the
18. 0:38first thing I'm going to do is open
19. 0:39Claude. Uh, from the upper right, I'm
20. 0:42going to make it a little bit bigger so
21. 0:42we can see it a little bit better. And
22. 0:44then I'm going to start asking it
23. 0:46questions. So, the first question I have
24. 0:47here is really just about context. Walk
25. 0:50me through this workbook. What's on each
26. 0:52tab? And how do they connect? And what
27. 0:54you'll see Claude doing is starting to
28. 0:55explore the workbook. It's not just
29. 0:58listing the tabs. It's explaining the
30. 1:00data flow. It's reading everything and
31. 1:01understanding how everything links
32. 1:02together. And you can see here it's
33. 1:04talking about how assumptions is the
34. 1:06place where the central inputs come in
35. 1:07that affect the model. And then that
36. 1:09links into headcount which feeds into
37. 1:10compensation which ultimately rolls up
38. 1:12into a summary tab. Um so in seconds you
39. 1:14can understand how the whole model
40. 1:16works. This is exactly the kind of
41. 1:17analysis that you could get from the
42. 1:19person who created the model in the
43. 1:20first place. Um, but in this case,
44. 1:22Claude is is really just doing it for
45. 1:23you inside your context. Now, you can
46. 1:25see here something interesting came up.
47. 1:27It's found an error. Um, there's a ref
48. 1:29error in the headcount tab. And we can
49. 1:31go over here to the headcount tab to
50. 1:32take a look at that. So, you can see,
51. 1:34yep, there's at least one, maybe several
52. 1:35ref errors here. Uh, the first one is in
53. 1:37E15. And so, Claude is offering to
54. 1:40investigate and fix the references that
55. 1:42are cascading throughout this workbook.
56. 1:44So, let's do that. So, we'll tell Claude
57. 1:46there's a ref error in cell E15 on the
58. 1:48headcount tab. you know, can you
59. 1:49diagnose and can you fix this? Um, and
60. 1:52what Claude will do is trace the error.
61. 1:54It already understands a fair amount of
62. 1:56this the specific context from its
63. 1:58initial analysis. And here it can see
64. 2:00the issue, right? It can see what's
65. 2:01going on. It understands what the broken
66. 2:03problem is. Um, now it's giving you a a
67. 2:06choice. It's saying, well, my
68. 2:08recommendation would be to replace the
69. 2:09formula with zero. And, you know,
70. 2:11there's other ways to to do this. You
71. 2:13could set it to one if you are planning
72. 2:14to hire someone, or it could be a
73. 2:15different value you specify. So, in this
74. 2:17case, I'm actually just going to say to
75. 2:18Claude, use your best judgment. Um, I
76. 2:21could give it a specific answer to the
77. 2:23question, uh, you know, saying 01 or
78. 2:25other. Um, but in this case, I want to
79. 2:27see what Claude does. And so, Claude is
80. 2:30going to analyze and decide essentially
81. 2:32as it recommended, um, to set the the
82. 2:35planned hires to zero. Um, so now you
83. 2:37can see that on the left the problem has
84. 2:39been fixed. The ref errors have gone
85. 2:40away and in fact the the cascade has
86. 2:42already happened through the rest of the
87. 2:44sheets. um you know creating the the
88. 2:46appropriate data. So now let's look at
89. 2:49something like a scenario model which is
90. 2:52exactly what this model was designed
91. 2:53for. Um and here's where Claude really
92. 2:55shines. So let's say leadership asks
93. 2:57what if attrition runs higher than
94. 2:58expected this year. So instead of
95. 3:00manually updating cells and hoping you
96. 3:02didn't break anything. You just say what
97. 3:03you want. So I'll go back to the
98. 3:05assumptions tab. Take a look at this.
99. 3:06I've got 10% as my attrition rate. Let's
100. 3:08say instead that I want to update my
101. 3:10plan to assume 15% attrition instead of
102. 3:1210%. Show me what changes. And what
103. 3:15you'll see here is that Claude will make
104. 3:17the edit and then give you an analysis
105. 3:19across the other tabs of what actually
106. 3:21has changed. This will also be reflected
107. 3:23in the model itself. So you can go and
108. 3:25look at it on your own. But Claude is
109. 3:27going to give you a walkthrough and it's
110. 3:28going to help you understand what
111. 3:30actually changed. Now the headcount
112. 3:32projections, compensation costs, all of
113. 3:34those things recalculated correctly
114. 3:35because the formulas are are helping to
115. 3:37do that. Um it's not just individual
116. 3:39cells. And some of this is purely built
117. 3:41into Excel. other things are things that
118. 3:42Claude is able to to pull out um for you
119. 3:45and and also you know help you
120. 3:47recalculate based on those
121. 3:48relationships.
122. 3:50So now let's try to visualize this data.
123. 3:52Uh let's say that leadership wants a
124. 3:54visual breakdown of headcount by
125. 3:55department and level. Um we'll go over
126. 3:57to the summary tab because that's
127. 3:58probably the most logical place to put
128. 4:00it. Um so now what we really want um
129. 4:03let's just say you know a pivot table
130. 4:04and a chart would be really helpful. So
131. 4:07we'll give Claude that direction. Um and
132. 4:09let's see what Claude does.
133. 4:12So you can see Claude is planning to
134. 4:14create a pivot table from the headcount
135. 4:15data and it's also going to create a bar
136. 4:17chart to go with it. Um, and you can see
137. 4:19this is the pivot table right here. It
138. 4:21managed to produce that pretty quickly.
139. 4:23And then it's going to create a stack
140. 4:24bar chart. That that sounds like the
141. 4:25right basic visual. Um, and you can see
142. 4:28down here, yep, that's exactly what I
143. 4:29get. Um, I could have given it more
144. 4:31specific direction on formatting or on
145. 4:34exactly how to produce this, but you
146. 4:36know, that really seems, you know, just
147. 4:37about right to me. Um, and so you can
148. 4:39see over here, you know, essentially
149. 4:41it's giving me the option of continuing
150. 4:43to adjust the formatting. Um, but
151. 4:45there's no digging through menus.
152. 4:46There's no formatting headaches. You
153. 4:47just tell Cloud what you need and it
154. 4:49builds it.
155. 4:51All right, one last thing. Let's say
156. 4:53that you want to add a new calculation
157. 4:54that doesn't exist yet. So, if I scroll
158. 4:56over a little bit here, you'll see I
159. 4:57have base salary as my last item in
160. 5:00here. And what I'd really like is
161. 5:02something like fully loaded cost. So,
162. 5:04let's add that. Let's add a column that
163. 5:06calculates the fully loaded cost per
164. 5:08employee using the rates on the
165. 5:09assumptions tab, but in the context in
166. 5:11this case of the headcount tab. So
167. 5:14Claude's going to add this column and
168. 5:15it's going to use a formula that
169. 5:16references the assumptions tab. Right?
170. 5:18It's not just copying the numbers, it's
171. 5:19building formulas. These are the things
172. 5:21that you would need um to to ultimately
173. 5:23maintain this model yourself. And so you
174. 5:25can see here it's putting in place fully
175. 5:27loaded costs. Um and it's going to again
176. 5:30calculate this based on the various
177. 5:33things that it knows are going on in
178. 5:34this worksheet. and then gives you a
179. 5:35fully loaded cost for your team.
180. 5:39So that's Cloud for Excel. Um whether
181. 5:41you're exploring an unfamiliar model,
182. 5:43debugging errors, running scenarios, or
183. 5:44building visualizations, Cloud's working
184. 5:46alongside you. It's helping to analyze
185. 5:48the the work and actually working within
186. 5:50your frameworks rather than giving you
187. 5:52something that you have to copy and
188. 5:53paste. Claude works alongside you right
189. 5:55in your spreadsheet. Thanks,