Use Excel Copilot to Summarize and Analyze Inventory Data

What This Does

Copilot in Excel lets you ask questions about your data in plain language: "which SKUs have less than 7 days of supply?" or "create a pivot table of inventory value by category", and get immediate results without building every analysis manually.

Before You Start

• You have Excel open with your inventory or supply chain data loaded
• Microsoft 365 with Copilot enabled (see Level 2 Formula guide for setup notes)
• Your data has one header row with clear, unique column names (a formatted table is optional)

Steps

1. Check your data layout

A formatted table is no longer required: Copilot reads plain ranges too, as long as there is one header row with clear column names and no merged cells, subtotals, or blank rows. Converting to a table (Ctrl+T, then name it in the Table Design tab, e.g. "InventoryData") is still worth doing because it keeps ranges stable as rows are added.

2. Open Copilot

Click the Copilot icon in the lower-right corner of the Excel window to open the sidebar. Microsoft moved Copilot off the Home ribbon into this corner button; press F6 to reach it by keyboard, or right-click it and choose Move to ribbon for the old placement.

3. Ask a natural language question about your data

In the Copilot text box, type what you want to know or create. Examples:

• "Show me all SKUs where current inventory is less than 7 days of supply"
• "Create a pivot table showing total inventory value by category, sorted highest to lowest"
• "Highlight in red any SKUs where the reorder point hasn't been met"
• "What are the top 10 SKUs by inventory value, and what percentage of total inventory value do they represent?"

4. Review and apply the result

Copilot will either create the analysis directly in your worksheet or show you a preview. For pivot tables and charts, it will ask where you want to insert them. For formulas applied to highlighted rows, it will describe the filtering logic.

5. Ask for a narrative summary

After the analysis is created, ask: "Write a 3-sentence summary of what this data shows." Copilot will generate the narrative you need for your report.

Real Example

Scenario: It's Monday morning and you need to build the weekly inventory review that covers which SKUs need immediate attention. You have an extract from your ERP with 500 SKUs, current inventory, and average weekly demand.

Step 1: Ask Copilot: "Flag all SKUs with less than 14 days of supply and sort them by days of supply ascending."

Step 2: Ask Copilot: "Create a summary showing how many SKUs are at: critical risk (less than 7 days), at risk (7-14 days), watch list (14-30 days), and healthy (30+ days)."

Step 3: Ask Copilot: "Write 2 sentences summarizing the overall inventory health based on this data."

What you get: The risk-tiered view your manager wants plus the narrative summary, in 10 minutes instead of 45.

Tips

• The more specific your question, the better the output. "Show risky inventory" is worse than "Show SKUs with less than 14 days of supply where current inventory is below safety stock."
• For recurring analyses, ask Copilot to "save this as a named view" or write out the steps so you can recreate it next week without re-prompting.
• If Copilot produces a pivot table you want to customize, you can still edit it normally, it's a regular Excel pivot, not locked.

Tool interfaces change, if Copilot isn't visible in the lower-right corner, look for an AI icon elsewhere in the window and check that your account has a Copilot license.