NECS is very proud to provide you with free access to Digital Learning Solutions; online training and assessment for Microsoft Office products. It has been developed to provide an officially recognised route of learning for the whole workforce and includes “just in time” training via a searchable resource tool.
Digital Learning Solutions
For more information on the courses available, please expand the selections below. Please note that all courses are based on Microsoft Office 2010.
Microsoft Word
WORD – resources
- Download the Word 2010 specialist user guide
- Download the Word 2010 expert user guide
- Download the Word 2010 quick reference guide
WORD COURSE – editing basic documents
If you’re looking to start completely from scratch in Word or recap the basics, this is the right course for you. It will cover key features such as creating, editing, saving and printing documents. It will also cover how to insert objects such as images, ClipArt and WordArt.
- Getting started
- Manipulating text
- Proof and print
- Layout and format
- Objects (such as pictures and shapes)
- Tables
There are no courses currently scheduled. Please contact us to register your interest in a course.
WORD COURSE – building long documents
This course is for those who want to go beyond the basics, revealing the secrets of Word power users. For example, the course explains how to use styles to rapidly change a document, instantly insert a Table of Contents, and use the helpful Navigation pane.
Create long documents with sophisticated features such as footnotes, endnotes, captions and Indexes as well as impressive SmartArt graphics.
- Word styles versus formatting group controls
- Advantages of using styles
- Modifying pictures
- Insert smart art
- Simplifying the use of long documents
- Charts and advanced table features
- Inserting content using quick parts
There are no courses currently scheduled. Please contact us to register your interest in a course.
WORD COURSE – track changes, mail merge and forms
Collaborate with others by tracking all changes made on a
document by various users. Start a Mail Merge to create letters, emails or labels for a long list of contacts. Access the Developer tab to add Form controls to documents. You can then restrict users so they can only complete your form fields and not change anything else.
- Track change controls and options
- Mail merge – ribbon versus the wizard
- Creating forms
There are no courses currently scheduled. Please contact us to register your interest in a course.
Microsoft Excel
EXCEL – resources
- Download the Excel 2010 specialist user guide
- Download the Excel 2010 expert user guide
- Download the Excel 2010 quick reference guide
EXCEL COURSE – essentials
If you’re completely new to Excel or are just looking for a refresher on the basics, this is the course for you.
- Layout, navigation and the ribbon
- Entering data
- Formatting cells, leading onto data types
- View tab
- Converting range to table
- Sorting and filtering
- Autosum
There are no courses currently scheduled. Please contact us to register your interest in a course.
EXCEL COURSE – formulas and functions
Are you comfortable using Excel for spreadsheets that others have created, but have ideas on how they might be improved?
This course covers the use of formulas and some of the most commonly used functions – they might be just what you need to make those changes.
- BODMAS
- Formulas
- Named ranges
- Functions
- Sum
- Avg
- Min
- Max
- Count
- Date
- Text
- If
There are no courses currently scheduled. Please contact us to register your interest in a course.
EXCEL COURSE – what’s the function?
You want to be able to do more. You can build spreadsheets with tables and automate calculations but you’d like to make Excel work harder for you to help analyse the data rather that present it.
- vLookup
- Index match
- Concatenate
- Nested If, including logic
- SumIf
- IfError
There are no courses currently scheduled. Please contact us to register your interest in a course.
EXCEL COURSE – Safe, secure and shared
You build spreadsheets for others to complete, but when you get them back they look nothing like the one you sent out.
Learn how to lock down your spreadsheet, making sure the only thing others can do with it is what you want them to do.
- Data validation
- General validation
- Lists
- Dynamic lists
- Conditional lists
- Protection
- Comments
- Consolidating data
There are no courses currently scheduled. Please contact us to register your interest in a course.
EXCEL COURSE – bringing your data to life
Do you have to produce reports based on data you have in Excel?
This course not only covers different ways you can present your data. For example not all charts suit all data, considering what message you’re trying to present can determine the chart you need.
- Tables (with formula)
- Conditional formatting
- Sparklines
- Charts
- Pivot tables (basic)
- Pivot charts (basic)
- Build an example dashboard
There are no courses currently scheduled. Please contact us to register your interest in a course.
EXCEL COURSE – power of the pivot table
The title says it all; this specialised course focuses on how to make the most of your data, getting the best from pivot tables and pivot charts.
We’ll cover what they are and how they can be used, how to manipulate and present your data in different ways and finish up building your own dashboard.
- Pivot tables
- Pivot charts
- Slicers
- Dashboards
There are no courses currently scheduled. Please contact us to register your interest in a course.
Microsoft PowerPoint
POWERPOINT – resources
- Download the PowerPoint 2010 specialist user guide
- Download the PowerPoint 2010 quick reference guide
POWERPOINT COURSE – building effective presentations
This course has been designed to help you familiarise yourself with the main features in Microsoft PowerPoint 2010.
It will outline best practice presentation design tips to help ensure you can create effective graphical content that enhance your presentation rather than fighting for the audience’s attention.
- The presentation environment
- Best practice for a good presentation
- Creating a presentation
- Working with text
- Working with graphics
- Working with tables
- Working with charts
- Delivering a presentation
There are no courses currently scheduled. Please contact us to register your interest in a course.
POWERPOINT COURSE – self-presenting presentations
In this course we create custom templates, record animation and voiceovers and add timings to presentations to create compelling standalone presentations that don’t require the presenter to be there.
We then look at different ways to securely distribute these standalone presentations such as running in kiosk mode or saving as video file.
- Customising templates
- Advanced graphics and animation
- Adding multimedia elements
- Adding voiceovers
- Customising a slideshow
- Adding timings and recording a presentation
- Securing and distributing presentations to be viewed without a presenter
There are no courses currently scheduled. Please contact us to register your interest in a course.
Microsoft Outlook
OUTLOOK – resources
OUTLOOK COURSE – hints and tips
Outlook Hints and Tips has helped even experienced users achieve far more with their valuable time.
This course goes beyond the basics of using Mail, Calendar, Contacts and Tasks. It also provides valuable tips for NHS Mail users working within a limited Quota size.
- Using the NHSMail web portal
- Managing your quota (allocated storage)
- Using the address book
- Tasks
- Contacts
- Calendars
- Shortcuts and best practice
There are no courses currently scheduled. Please contact us to register your interest in a course.
Microsoft OneNote
ONENOTE – resources
ONENOTE – save and sync digital notes
The Microsoft OneNote 2010 course covers the majority of functionality within OneNote.
The course will cover key features such as creating and working with notebooks and their different components and will focus on the ability to capture various types of media from text, to images and videos.
It will explore the use of tags and tag reports to help organise and make your notes more useful and this will lead into using OneNote’s powerful search capabilities to find what you’re looking for quickly. It will also cover shared notebooks, version control and integration with other Microsoft applications.
There are no courses currently scheduled. Please contact us to register your interest in a course.
Microsoft Project
PROJECT – resources
PROJECT COURSE – part 1 – building a project plan
This course will give an introduction to MS Project and get new users to a point where they can create their own resourced project plan.
- Broad overview
- Entering links and tasks
- Project information
- Resources
- Consolidation exercise
- Overview of tracking and reporting your projects
Please note you must bring your own laptop with Microsoft Project installed when attending this course.
There are no courses currently scheduled. Please contact us to register your interest in a course.
PROJECT COURSE – part 2 – tracking and reporting your projects
Following a recap of part 1, this course will look in detail as to how you can baseline, track and report on executing your projects, together with a glimpse of reporting on multiple projects and resource pools.
- Recap on building a project plan
- Baselining
- Tracking
- Reporting
- Custom fields
- Demonstration of resource pools and ‘motherships’
- Consolidation exercise
Please note you must bring your own laptop with Microsoft Project installed when attending this course.
There are no courses currently scheduled. Please contact us to register your interest in a course.