DARWIN BUSINESS EXCEL WORKSHOP · EXCEL WITH COPILOT
Be a Champion Prompt Critic
Thirteen everyday Excel questions from businesses around Darwin are about to be sent to Copilot. Every one of them has a problem. Your job: call it out before the send button gets pressed.
Shout your answers; the sharpest critics carry the round. Space advances.
HOLD IT RIGHT THERE
Your turn, Prompt Critics
Answers in the chat
ROUNDS
Jump to any round, in any order
The time-saved tally keeps counting whichever order you play.
TAKE THIS WITH YOU
The Prompt Critic's Checklist
Describe your sheet. Copilot is in a browser tab and cannot see your screen; say which columns, which rows and where the answer goes, like a phone call to someone who cannot see it.
Paste the formula and say what it shows. "My formula is broken" is a mood; "=B3*E2 copied down gives 0" is a fixable problem.
Say what you want to keep. Delete is forever; a filter hides the rest and gives it back. Ask for the undo as part of the question.
Name the real problem. "Make my spreadsheet work" gets a guess; "seven spellings of Darwin in the Location column" gets a fix and a drop-down.
Supply the dates. Copilot fills every gap with something plausible; our financial year starts 1 July, and it will not ask.
Say how many outcomes you want. Good or bad is two; say three and where each one starts, and the formula arrives ready.
Give it every input. Amount, rate, term, frequency; a loan question with one of them missing is a guess with a dollar sign.
Take the anger out before you press send. The formula, what it returns, the green triangle you noticed; vent to a colleague instead.
Say what you did just before it broke. Reformatted the column? Say so. Excel's dates really do count from 1 January 1900.
Say what you half-heard. "Was Excel invented in 1900?" gets a yes or no; "the trainer said something about dates and 1900, what did I miss?" gets the lesson. Copilot will never judge you for not paying attention.
Ask to be taught. A bare formula just tempts; ask for the steps and the reasoning so the understanding stays with you.
Check every range it gives you. Confident does not mean correct; trace the precedents and test on rows where you already know the answer.
De-identify before you paste. Names, birth dates and tax file numbers never go into a free web chat; describe the columns and keep the people in the workbook.
Total estimated time saved by today's critics: 0 minutes.
Time savings are for celebration purposes only and would not survive an audit.