5 Brilliant Tips for Making Awesome Excel Dashboards (2023)

Introduction

Excel dashboards are one of the most powerful and versatile visualization tools today. By displaying complex data sets in an intuitive and organized fashion, they can help you quickly identify patterns and draw meaningful insights. This blog post will provide you with five brilliant tips to create an awesome Excel dashboard. We’ll be covering both beginner and advanced techniques to help you get the most out of Ms. Excel. No matter if you are just starting out or are an expert-level user, these tips will help you get to your desired result fast!

Tip 1: Know Your Data

In order to create meaningful and effective visualizations, you need to start with quality data. Following a few best practices to ensure that all elements of your dashboard are based on accurate data.

a. Use Accurate Data Sources

Before beginning dashboard creation, take the time to investigate the source material and ensure that it can be trusted. Use sources that are comprehensive and internally consistent. If you are summarizing data from multiple sources, make sure that they match up.

b. Clean Data Before Designing

Once you confirm the accuracy of your data source, double-check that it is clean of any inconsistencies or errors that may hinder visualization. There are a wide range of tools at your disposal to assist with data cleanup such as Python, Excel and Tableau.

c. Analyze Data for Trends

Once your data is ready for design, begin to analyze it for potential insights and trends. Different views, filters and slicers can help you identify relationships between different elements of the data. Tactically apply visual techniques such as color to emphasize key trends.

Tip 2: Design Intuitive Visuals

When creating a dashboard, the visuals and design you use play a key role in conveying information to your audience. If a dashboard has a confusing and poorly structured visual design, viewers may be unable to interpret the data correctly. In order to make sure your dashboard is clear, intuitive and effective, here are 3 tips for designing visuals:

a. Understand the impact of visuals

Before you start designing visuals for your dashboard, it is important to understand what type of visuals can be used effectively to display the data. Depending on the type of data you are displaying, you can use a variety of visuals, such as bar graphs, line graphs, tables, pie charts, and heat maps. Different visuals can be used to highlight different types of information, so it is important to understand the impact of each visual before you start creating them.

b. Choose the right visual design

Once you have selected the visual(s) that you want to use, the next step is to choose the right design for them. When creating visuals for your dashboard, you want to make sure they are both informative and visually appealing. Good design techniques include using color to distinguish between different elements, using effective labels and titles, and using shapes and sizes effectively to convey meaning.

c. Create appealing charts and graphs

Finally, you want to make sure your charts and graphs are organized and aesthetically pleasing. This includes making sure the data is organized in an organized, logical way, using simple font and visuals styles, and ensuring the visuals are easy to read and interpret. Additionally, you can add additional information such as legend labels and annotations to help viewers better understand the data.

Tip 3: Automate As Much As You Can

By automating as much as you can, you can create organized dashboards with less effort and risk of errors. Using formulas and functions, along with automating filtering and sorting, can help you minimize manual input to get the desired outcome.

Utilize Formulas and Functions

Formulas and functions are a great way to get the result you want from the data. They allow you to quickly and automatically analyze multiple combinations of data, and can even help you uncover insights you may have otherwise missed.

If you have basic knowledge of a few key formulas, such as SUM, COUNT, and AVERAGE, you can easily apply these functions to an entire row or column of data, instead of needing to manually calculate each item. This can save you time and help ensure accuracy.

Automate Filtering and Sorting

Automating filtering and sorting can also help reduce manual input, while ensuring consistent results. Using filters and sorting allows you to quickly and easily check your dataset for specific items and order your data the way you want. You can also apply multiple filters and sorting combinations to answer specific questions or display different types of data.

Review Data Connections Regularly

To ensure your dashboards are always up to date, make sure to review your data connections regularly. This means checking any sources of data you use and making sure the data is up to date and accurate. This will ensure your dashboards are always displaying accurate and relevant information for your Excel graphs and charts.

Tip 4: Build Interactivity

Making dashboards interactive can play an important role in making sure that your users get the most value from the data. To this end, there are a few techniques you can use to add interactivity to your dashboards.

Make dashboards interactive

One way to make your dashboards interactive is to create a filter bar at the top of the page containing combo boxes, check boxes, and sliders. This filter bar allows the user to tweak which data is shown on the dashboard dynamically. This allows them to control what data they see and helps them get the most out of the dashboard.

Utilize drill-down, drill-through functions

Another way to increase the interactivity of your dashboards is to utilize drill-down, drill-through functions. This allows users to click on a data-point to get more in-depth information about it – for example, drilling down to see the individual transactions for that data point, or drilling through to other dashboards for further analysis. This helps users get more in-depth insights into the data without having to navigate away from the dashboard.

Link data sources to streamline navigation

Finally, you can add links between different dashboards and data sources to streamline navigation. This allows users to quickly navigate back and forth between different dashboards without having to go through multiple clicks and steps. This helps ensure that users can quickly get to the data they need, regardless of its source.

Tip 5: Quality Assurance

Creating an effective, informative and visually appealing dashboard is of little use if the data is not reliable. The final step of constructing a dashboard is to ensure that the product is of high-quality. It is critical to guarantee that the data is accurate, that the filters and links work, and that the dashboard can be comprehensively tested with input from users.

Check Accuracy of Final Product

Once the dashboard is finished, ensure that the data is correct. Go through each table, graph, and KPI-device and double-check the content.

Review Links and Filters

Review the filters applied to the data to ensure that it is appropriately connected. Most dashboards have multiple layers of links and filters and can become confusing. Therefore, go through each link and filter to ensure that they work as intended and that the data is where it should be.

Test Dashboard from User Perspective

Once the dashboard is built, it is important to test it from a user’s perspective. Involve people from all layers of the organization who are knowledgeable about the data and the dashboard and get their feedback. Ask them to review the dashboard, navigate through it, and provide any suggestions for improvements.

Conclusion

In this blog post we have discussed the importance of Excel dashboards and the features they offer. We then went on to discuss 5 brilliant tips for creating awesome dashboards. These tips included using visuals, ensuring the dashboard tells a story, making data points count, breaking dashboards up, and streamlining the entire dashboard setup.

In conclusion, Excel dashboards are an invaluable tool for business owners, executives, and other professionals to keep an eye on their at-a-glance analysis, their trends, and even their KPIs. Dashboards give an efficient way to keep an eye on the analytics of a business, allowing individuals and teams to spend less time on manual data gathering and more time on meaningful insights.

We hope that these 5 tips have been helpful in starting you on the journey to creating awesome dashboards with Excel. With the right setup, Excel has a powerful ability to capture and communicate your data story, so let’s get out there and start building amazing Excel dashboards today!