Foundations for Analytics with Python

Many of Excel’s 750 million users would like to do more with their data, such as repeating similar analyses over hundreds of files or combining the data in many files for analysis at one time. This practical guide shows ambitious non-programmers how to automate and scale data processing and analysis of different data formats with Python, using business-relevant examples with complete, easy-to-read code.

Beginning with the basics of Python, author Clinton Brownley shows you how to deal with Excel, CSV, and text files in Python, leading up to scheduling scripts to automatically gather and process information without human intervention. More practical than many other introductions to Python, this book gives you skills you can immediately apply in your job.

• Automate and scale data processing with only a knowledge of Excel
• Get an excellent, practical introduction to scripting languages in general
• Learn techniques through real-world business examples, including three in-depth projects

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Python Basics
Chapter 2. Comma-Separated Values (CSV) Files
Chapter 3. Excel Files
Chapter 4. Databases
Chapter 5. Applications
Chapter 6. Figures and Plots
Chapter 7. Descriptive Statistics and Modeling
Chapter 8. Scheduling Scripts to Run Automatically
Chapter 9. Where to Go from Here
Appendix A. Download Instructions
Appendix B. Answers to Exercises