Before you fully embrace Excel as a database tool, make sure to keep the following cons in mind. Security is a critical weakness when relying on Excel for anything beyond basic data management.

Click anywhere in the database to be filtered. Select the "Data" tab from the ribbon, then click the "Filter" icon. Notice that Excel has turned the column headers into drop-down-lists with arrows.

In Excel, the INDEX function returns an item from a specific position (in a list, table, database). The MATCH function returns the position of a value (in a list, table, database).