10 Tips for Building Dashboards with Excel

Introduction

A Dashboard is typically a graphical user interface that provides at-a-glance views ofkey metrics and performance indicators relevant to a particular goal or business process. Using a dashboard, organizations are much better poised to quickly understand the current health of their business, analyze trends, and spot problems before they become catastrophes.

Dashboards can be extremely powerful communication tools, as they capture what can be large amounts of data in easy to understand visuals. Ultimately, using data dashboards to quickly display operational metrics benefits a company on multiple fronts, from cost savings to higher worker output.

This blog post will provide 10 actionable tips on how to build an effective dashboard with Excel. With a few simple guidelines and a few clicks, you can make the most out of your valuable data.

Comprehend Requirements

Creating great dashboards with MS Excel depends on setting expectations early on and laying out the design structure. The first step in building effective dashboards with Excel is to comprehend the requirements.

Identify Main Goal

Before starting any project, it is vital to identify the main goal of the dashboard. It is important to understand the purpose of the dashboard and to determine the important metrics that should be highlighted in the dashboard. This step will help in identifying the desired end-state and setting up the right data structure to develop the dashboard.

Gather Data to Populate Dashboard

The next step is to source and gather all the relevant data sources to populate the dashboard. Data sources may include server logs, external APIs, and third-party services. It is important to decide on the type of data that needs to be displayed in the dashboard, and to obtain the required data from the sources.

Specify Design Preferences

Deciding on the design of the dashboard is a critical part of building an effective dashboard. The design of the dashboard should be visually appealing and should support the content. The designer should focus on finding the balance between data display and aesthetics. Additionally, it is important to maintain consistency within the dashboard design and use of uniform formatting and style.

Utilize Data

Gathering the necessary data is one of the most important steps in creating a successful dashboard with Excel. The next step is utilizing that data in the most effective way. Consider the following tips when using data to create dashboards with Excel.

Feature Availability

When working with Excel, certain features may be available depending on the version of the software. To ensure the best user experience when creating a dashboard, check the feature availability and documentation. This way, appropriate features can be used when making the dashboard.

Data Formats

For dashboards to be useful, the data must be in the correct format. Multiple data file types can be used for dashboards. Common file types for dashboards include Excel Workbooks, Access Databases, text files, and XML documents.

Troubleshooting

When creating a dashboard, data discrepancies and other errors may arise. To ensure the accuracy of the dashboard and the data, troubleshoot any issues that come up. This can be done by checking the data source, data types, and field values to identify any issues and resolve them.

Types of Visualization

When building a dashboard with Excel, there are several types of visualizations you can use to effectively get your message across. These include line and bar charts, heat maps, and bubble graphs. Let's dive in and explore the different visualization options.

Line/Bar Charts

Line and bar charts are one of the most commonly used types of visuals in dashboards. This type of chart is simple and easy to interpret, making it a great option for quickly summarizing and displaying data. You can use line and bar charts to compare trends over time, or to compare the differences between sets of data.

Heat Maps

Heat maps are a great way to visualize complex information quickly and easily. Heat maps display information in color blocks, where the color of the block corresponds with the strength of the data. Heat maps are ideal for visualizing differences in large sets of data, as the blocks make it easy to pinpoint areas of the data that may need more attention.

Bubble Graphs

Bubble graphs are another type of visualization that's commonly used in dashboards. Bubble graphs are interactive charts that allow you to explore data in three dimensions. Each “bubble” in the chart represents a different data point or category, with the size of the bubble representing the strength or magnitude of the data. Bubble graphs are great for showing relationships between different data points and for quickly identifying outliers.

Formatting

When building a dashboard with Microsoft Excel, formatting is of utmost importance. Dashboards are used to quickly and easily convey information, so it is important to ensure that the formatting is efficient, attractive, and organized. Here are some tips for formatting dashboards with Microsoft Excel:

Colors

Establishing a uniform color scheme is the first step in creating an effective and attractive dashboard format. One way to approach this is to assign colors to data sets, which allows the viewer to easily follow the progression of important data. Additionally, using bright colors to emphasize important data points will make the overall look more appealing and readable.

Text

In addition to colors, formatting text is essential for readability of the dashboard. Font size, style, and bolding should be used to designate prominence or draw attention to important elements. Using the same font for the entirety of the dashboard will ensure the overall style is consistent.

Shapes

Using shapes to frame each individual element of the dashboard will make it more visually coherent and organized. Having a separate shape for each element also makes the different sections of the dashboard easier to identify and navigate. Additionally, adding arrows and lines to help join components together can be a helpful design element that will not take away from the legibility of the dashboard.

Tools to Use

When constructing a dashboard with Excel, one of the most important steps is choosing the right tools to use. Three of the most common are PivotCharts, Sparklines, and PowerBI. Let's explore each of these in more detail.

PivotCharts

PivotCharts are graphical representations of data, similar to the charts you would find on a typical bar or pie chart. They allow users to see trends and outliers quickly, making them ideal for a dashboard. PivotCharts can be easily customized, allowing you to change labels, axis titles, colors, as well as add additional elements like average/median markers.

Sparklines

Sparklines are small, simple charts that can be embedded directly into a cell of an Excel spreadsheet. They provide a succinct visual representation of a numeric data set, making them perfect for comparing values. Sparklines are a great way to quickly get a snapshot of trends in a few simple clicks.

PowerBI

PowerBI is a collection of business intelligence tools from Microsoft. PowerBI allows you to build visually compelling and interactive dashboards with many of the same capabilities as basic Excel charts, but with added features like data modelling, data transformations and analytics. PowerBI also offers easy publish and share capabilities, making it an ideal choice for creating a professional and sophisticated dashboard.

Conclusion

Dashboards are an essential tool to staying organized and measuring progress towards goals. Excel is a powerful tool to build efficient dashboards and can be used by people with a variety of technical backgrounds. From data visualizations to userfriendly design, the ten tips mentioned in this article will help you create effective and efficient dashboards with Excel.

Summary of Benefits

The key benefits of using Excel to create dashboards are simplicity, scalability and customizability. Excel is a great tool for both beginners and experts when it comes to creating custom dashboards. With its built-in features, Excel offers features for filtering, sorting, and calculating the data for clarity. You can easily customize visualizations and apply advanced techniques like conditional formatting and macros to achieve desired results.

Upcoming Excel Improvements

Microsoft continuously improves the architecture of Excel. Excel is also regularly updating its version and adding new features to make it suitable for more complex data analysis. New high-performance capabilities have been added that allow bigger and more complex data sets to be handled with ease.

Suggestions for Improvement

• Start by cleaning the data: check for any invalid data or wrongly formatted data and edit to ensure a clean dataset.
• Make sure the visualizations and charts used are effective and meaningful. Don’t choose too many colors or text size. Keep it simple.
• Include advanced features like conditional formatting and macros to add more power to your dashboard.
• Always preview before publishing and look for any inaccuracies in data or visualization.
• If it is a complex dashboard with large volumes of data, use Power Pivot to join data and create powerful visualizations.