How To Analyze Data In Google Sheets

In this tutorial, you will learn how to analyze data in Google Sheets.

Google Sheets is a great solution for aggregating and storing data from multiple sources, but what do you do with that data once you’ve collected it? If you have more than a few tens of lines of data in your spreadsheet, going through line by line is infeasible, so what can you do to get insights into a large data set?

There are a near-infinite number of ways to analyze data in Google Sheets, many of them highly complex and specialized, but fortunately, Google Sheets has several quick and easy data analysis features that you can use right away regardless of the type of data in your spreadsheet. Read on to learn about some of these features

Quick Calculations

One handy feature in Google Sheets for getting the basic info on a data set or portion of a data set is the quick calculation feature. Here’s how to use it:

Step 1

Select the range you want to get insights on. This can be a small range, one or more entire rows or columns, or the entire sheet

Step 2

In the bottom-right of the screen, you’ll see “Sum:” followed by the total sum for the selected range

Step 3

To see more calculations, click on Sum. The average, min and max values, count and number count will display for the selected range

Step 4

Click on a different calculation to display it in collapsed view instead of Sum

Explore Feature

Another handy feature for analyzing data in Google Sheets is the Explore feature, which uses artificial intelligence to suggest insights and answer simple questions typed in English.

Here’s how to analyze data with Explore:

Step 1

Click on the Explore icon in the bottom-left of the screen

Step 2

In the Answers section of the Explore sidebar, you can choose from the suggested questions

Step 3

And the answer to that question will display

Step 4

Click the back arrow in the upper-left to return to the main Explore screen and try choosing a different question, or typing your own

Step 5

Scroll down in the Explore sidebar for some handy auto-generated charts displaying information about your data

Step 6

Hover over a chart to display options to insert the chart into your spreadsheet or view it full-size

Step 7

You can also quickly add alternating color formatting to your data, or create a pivot table from the data using the options in the Explore sidebar

Summary

Example Spreadsheet: Make a copy of the example spreadsheet

In this tutorial, I covered how to analyze data in Google Sheets. Want more? Check out all the Google Sheets Tutorials.