A Practical Guide to Building Great Excel Dashboards

Introduction

Dashboards are an excellent way to visualize data in order to make informed decisions. Excel dashboards, in particular, provide users with an interactive view of their data in one easy-to-read location. Building great Excel dashboards does not have to be difficult. In this guide, we will cover the basics of Excel dashboard building and offer best practices for ensuring a successful end product.

Definition of Dashboards

A dashboard is a graphical user interface that enables efficient navigation to relevant data sources. The purpose of a dashboard is to visually represent key metrics so that users can quickly discern the information they need to better inform their decisions. An Excel dashboard typically displays various graphs, charts, and tables that are pulled from an Excel spreadsheet or model.

Overview of Dashboard Building Process

• First, identify the target audience and use cases.
• Second, collect the data you want to display.
• Third, decide how you want to display the data.
• Fourth, build the data tables and visualizations.
• Finally, present the finished dashboard.

Dashboards: What They Are and How They Help

Dashboards are a vital tool that offer efficient ways to access and analyze large amounts of data quickly. They help by allowing you to quickly identify trends in data and to effectively delegate various duties. Businesses rely on these valuable tools to gain insights and make informed decisions about the business. dashboards are an invaluable asset to managers, executives, and front-line employees.

Benefits of Dashboards

The primary benefit of dashboards is their ability to give insights quickly. Dashboards offer a visual display of data that allows organizations to make decisions with real-time information. These tools can present larger amounts of data quickly and can be tailored to the specific needs of the company or individuals. By making use of these features, dashboards can save time and effort that would otherwise be spent on gathering and analyzing data manually.

Examples of Different Types of Dashboards

Dashboards come in many different types, and each serves a specific purpose. Common types of dashboards rarely serve an organization as a single one-size-fits-all tool. Instead, they can be tailored to company and individual data requirements. Some of the most common types of dashboards include:

• Executive Dashboards – These dashboards provide high-level data for executives to quickly access information such as sales overviews and financial insights.
• Sales Dashboards – Sales dashboards provide detailed information about sales performance, customer acquisition, revenue, and more.
• Marketing Dashboards – These dashboards provide insights into marketing campaigns, traffic, website performance, and other data.
• Operational Dashboards – Operational dashboards help track and measure progress on tasks, deadlines, and goals.

Preparation: Gathering the Data

Creating an effective Excel dashboard is no small task and requires plenty of preparation. One important stage is the process of gathering, cleaning, and preparing data. Before any meaningful insights can be extracted from the data or visualized through interactive Excel dashboards, you must properly collect and store data, clean it to ensure accuracy, and set up the spreadsheet.

Collecting and Storing Data

It is important to collect accurate and up-to-date data for your Excel dashboard. When gathering data, one should establish a clear goal of what you would like to understand and measure. Knowing the source of your data is also important as to ensure its accuracy. Point-of-sale systems, customer surveys, and tracking tools can be great sources of data. After the data is collected, it should be stored in an organized manner. Without proper storage and categorization, data will be too difficult to understand and analyze.

Cleaning and Preparing Data

Data cleaning is the process of ensuring the data collected is accurate, consistent and formatted correctly. Data preparation is the process of selecting, transforming, and modeling the data. For example, eliminating outliers or transforming into meaningful metrics. Using formulas or data visualization tools can help find any discrepancies and patterns within the data.

Setting Up the Spreadsheet

Once the data has been collected, cleaned, and prepared in an organized manner, the next step is setting up the spreadsheet. This process includes designing a sleek and intuitive user experience, creating the appropriate Excel charts or tables, and setting up dynamic calculations or conditional formatting. Using dynamic chart ranges or scroll bars can enable the user to interact with the data and quickly gather any insights available.

Designing Your Dashboard

The creation of a great Excel dashboard requires significant thought and effort. This section of the guide will provide an overview of the important considerations to make before designing and building your dashboard to maximize its effectiveness. Here, we will discuss formatting your data, selecting the appropriate chart and graph types, and selecting the appropriate themes and color schemes.

Formatting Your Data

The key to a successful Excel dashboard is formatting your data in such a way that it easily conveys the relevant information. Careful considerations should be made when preparing the foundation of your data. This includes sorting and arranging your data, creating appropriate categories and groupings, and setting up tables, labels and headers. These steps can save you time later on as it will make it easier to display the data in an effective way.

Selecting Appropriate Chart and Graph Types

The type of chart and graph used in your dashboard should be carefully chosen to accurately represent and display the data. Common types of charts used in Excel dashboards include line graphs, bar graphs, scatter plots, and pie charts, but depending on the type of data you are working with, there are other options available. Think through the goal of your dashboard, who you are trying to target with it, and determine the best way to display the data so that it is easily understandable.

Selecting Appropriate Themes and Color Schemes

The right color scheme and theme are important components of a great Excel dashboard. Choosing an appropriate theme can create harmony and help convey the message you are trying to portray. Color choices in your dashboard should also be carefully considered. Using too many colors can hinder the readability and make the dashboard appear cluttered, while too few colors can make it look dull and unappealing. It is also important to take into consideration the effect various colors may have on the viewer, as different colors have been known to have psychological effects on people.

Using the tips outlined in this practical guide, you will be well on your way to creating great Excel dashboards that can effectively and accurately display the data. Following these steps will help you easily share and illustrate information in a visually appealing way.

Creating the Dashboard

Creating a great Excel dashboard can be a difficult and time-consuming process, but with the right guidance it can be managed. Ready-made Excel dashboards offer a fast and efficient way to display data, allowing users to quickly identify trends, explore their data, and make informed decisions. In this chapter, we'll provide a practical guide to building great Excel dashboards, including the use of functions, filters and macros, building the dashboard layout and setting up interactive elements.

Utilizing Functions, Filters and Macros

Using functions, filters and macros is a great way to take your dashboard to the next level. Functions can provide deep insights into your data, enabling you to uncover useful data points that can help inform decisions. Filters can enable users to examine their data within specific parameters, and macros provide the opportunity to automate repetitive tasks.

Building the Dashboard Layout

When it comes to the layout of the dashboard, focus on creating a visually appealing design that clearly communicates key insights. Leverage chart types such as bar, line and scatter plots to provide quick visualizations of your data, and ensure that the dashboard layout optimizes space and makes best use of available real estate.

Establishing Interactions and Dynamic Elements

Dynamic elements can add interactivity to your dashboard, allowing for more efficient data exploration. Utilizing parameters such as conditional formatting and dynamic charts will add an interactive touch to your dashboard, allowing the user to modify or interact with elements of a dashboard in order to explore their data further.

Refinement and Quality Control

Now that you have built your Excel dashboard, it’s time to move on to the refinement and quality control phase. This is the step that allows your dashboard to truly shine. If done correctly, it can be the difference between an average and an excellent dashboard.

Presenting the Dashboard

Your Excel dashboard should visually represent the data that it is displaying in an easy and intuitive way. You should consider design elements such as font size, color, and placement when presenting the dashboard. Additionally, you should think about how the layout of the dashboard will enable the user to quickly identify trends and patterns in the data.

Debugging

A thorough debugging procedure is essential for any Excel dashboard. You should take the time to check that all formulas and formulas behind the scenes are functioning properly. One of the most important steps in this process is double-checking that the data that the dashboard is displaying is accurate. If possible, try to have someone else review the debugging process.

Quality Assurance

The quality assurance process is the final step before displaying the dashboard. It is designed to ensure that the dashboard works as expected in all environments. During this process, you should check that the dashboard is correctly formatted across different computer screens and that the embedded formulas are functioning correctly.

You should also test the dashboard using a variety of browsers, to ensure that the dashboard functions as expected across different platforms. After the quality assurance process is complete, the Excel dashboard is ready for display.

Conclusion

Excel dashboards are an excellent tool for organizations of all sizes. They enable users to summarize complex data quickly and effectively and can help both to inform key decisions and to track progress over a period of time.

Summarizing Benefits of Dashboards

Dashboards have the potential to save time, minimize question-seeking processes, and present a unified view of data. They can also mean the difference between success and failure in situations that require cutting-edge insight. Dashboards provide the user with real-time updates and analytical insights that can help them to make the right decisions with confidence.

Encouraging Reader Engagement

Creating great Excel dashboards can be as much an art as it is a science. Quality dashboards help readers engage with the data and make better sense of it. By following the tips in this guide, you can create a powerful dashboard that meets the needs of your organization and helps to bring your data to life.

The key elements to achieving success in dashboard creation include understanding the data, using the right design features, simplifying navigation, and ensuring the dashboard is properly formatted. With the right approach, you can create high-quality Excel dashboards that will help your organization to make the most of its data.