BUS1001

Assignment 1: Effective data analytics and visualisation using Excel

Marks: 50 (Equivalent to 15% of the final grade)
Assignment Type: Individual

Overview
Over the past few weeks, you have gained a general understanding of using spreadsheets in
business. This assignment will allow you to demonstrate what you learned through a spreadsheet file
named BUS1001-Ass1.xlsx.

Academic Integrity
Plagiarism occurs when you use words, ideas, or work products attributable to another identifiable
person or source:
• without attributing the work to the source from which it was obtained
• in a situation in which there is a legitimate expectation of original authorship
• in order to obtain some benefit, credit, or gain which need not be monetary
Collusion is a form of cheating which occurs when people work together in a deceitful way to
develop a submission for an assessment which has been restricted to individual effort.

By submitting* this piece of work and signing this document, I declare that:
1. The work is my own work.
2. I have not previously submitted all or part of this work for assessment in any subject, unless
the subject coordinator for the current subject (or my research supervisor, if applicable) has
given me written permission to reuse specific material and I have correctly referenced the
material taken from my own earlier work.
3. I have read and agree to be bound by the Statutes, Regulations and Policies of the
University relating to Academic Integrity available at
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/students/academic-integrity; and
4. I may be subject to student discipline processes in the event of an act of academic
misconduct by me including an act of plagiarism or cheating.

I further grant to the University or any third party authorised by the University
(www.latrobe.edu.au/text-match) the right to reproduce and/or communicate (make available online
or electronically transmit) the work I have submitted for the purpose of detecting plagiarism.
Assignment Requirements
The given BUS1001-Ass1.xlsx workbook comprises six worksheets: Data Dictionary,
Order, City, Query, Sales and ProductCategory.
The Order worksheet is the main sheet containing the business data of a Brazilian E-commerce
company from 2016 to 2018. Each row in the worksheet includes information on one line in a
customer order.Therefore, an order ID may appear in multiple rows. Note that the total sales we
mention here is calculated based on selling price and not include the shipping fee.
Start by exploring the workbook's contents to understand the meaning of the data, then apply data
analytics to support decision-making.
Submit ONE Excel file, which includes all the answers to the following questions.

1. (4 marks) Let's do some simple exploration. Turn the data in the Order sheet into a table and
write formulas to answer the questions listed in the Query worksheet.

2. (16 marks) The company manager wants to get an insight into the sales performance of
different states.

a. (2 marks) In the Sales sheet: Write formulas to fill the Customer City column with the
customer city of the corresponding customer.
b. (2 marks) In the Sales sheet: Write formulas to fill the Customer State
using the information provided in the City worksheet
c. (2 marks) In the Sales sheet: Write formulas to fill the Total Sales column
from each customer.
d. (8 marks) In a new worksheet: Create a pivot table and chart showing the number
of customers and total sales of each state. Filter to the bottom five states that have
the least total sales only. Choose appropriate chart to make both measures visible
on one chart.
e. (2 marks) Write a short paragraph (max 150 words) to describe your insight when
comparing sales performance of these five states. Identify any interesting
observations/patterns.

3. (14 marks) The manager wants to investigate further into the performance of two
states, Bahia and Rio de janeiro. In a new worksheet:
a. (2 marks) Extract or copy the Total Sales data of these two states from the Sales
sheet into two columns, one for each state. (Hint: Apply filter and copy data of each
group from the Sales sheet into a new column in the new sheet).
b. (8 marks) For each state’s total sale data:
i. (1 mark) draw a histogram.
ii. (1 mark) use the Data Analysis tool to display its descriptive statistics.
iii. (2 marks) write a short paragraph (max 150 words) describing your insight
about its data distribution.
c. (2 marks) Draw boxplots to compare the sales distributions of the two states. Hide
outliers in the plots.
d. (2 marks) Write a short paragraph (max 150 words) to describe your insight when
comparing the sales data distributions of the two states.
 4. (16 marks) The manager wants to get an insight into the sales performance of the watches gifts
category.

a. (2 marks) In the Order sheet: You can find that the Product Category column is
shown in Portuguese, so to help us understand the data for analysis, write a formula
to fill the Product Category English column using the information provided in the
ProductCategory sheet.
b. (10 marks) Create a pivot table and chart in a new sheet showing the annual
sales and total number of sold items of the watches gifts category. Choose
appropriate chart to make both measures visible on the chart.
c. (4 marks) Show the trend line (or regression model) and its equation on Q 4.b’s
chart. Use the equation to forecast the annual sales of the next three years (2019-
2021). How accurate is the created regression model? Based on which indicator?

Submission Guide
Answers to all questions are presented in an Excel file, including the data. For answers written
in short paragraphs, create a textbox next to your visualisation to write your answers.

Marking rubrics
The marker in assessing your work will use the following marking guide. Please have a look to
understand what you need to cover for each question in this assignment.

• Full marks for the correct and well-presented answer. Half of the mark for something close.
• To answer questions that require writing a formula, you MUST have the formula as the
answer. No mark will be given without the formula.
• For all visualisations (tables and charts), well-presented means
o Having clear and meaningful titles, headers, labels, legends, and
o Data is formatted according to their types.
o Tables and charts are formatted nicely to see the pattern and support understanding
the insights immediately.
• For short answers, well-presented means visible, comprehensive, and compact.