How to Create an Interactive Excel Dashboard
Data analysis can help you improve your processes with efficient reporting methods. But sometimes, you need more than just numbers in a spreadsheet to make your point. So, why not use data visualization tools like interactive dashboards?
They can help report campaigns, increase conversions, analytics, and more. In this article, we’ll walk through how to create an interactive dashboard with an example and also provide tips for designing beautiful dashboards in Excel.
1. Organize Your Source Data and Create a Layout
A well-designed dashboard is a powerful reporting tool that can help you visualize and communicate your data. The first step is ensuring that your data is free of errors and properly organized into rows and columns with appropriate headers.
You can use dashboards in any industry, but they’re especially helpful in finance, sales, and marketing.
When designing a dashboard, you should remember that it should be easy for end users to navigate. The next step is to decide the kind of layout based on the information that needs to be displayed.
For our example, let’s create a dashboard that shows the following information on one sheet:
Create a new Excel worksheet labeled “Dashboard”. This is where you’ll build up your dashboard by adding elements. Using text styles and fonts that align with your or your brand’s voice, tone, and personality is also a good idea.
2. Build PivotTables to Organize Your Data
Apivot table makes it easy to organize your datain Excel into groups. it’s possible to use the tool to count, sum up, multiply values, and perform multiple actions across those groups.
To demonstrate how these interactive dashboards actually work, we’ll create an interactive “Freelance Projects” dashboard as an example.
You’ll need to arrange your data in a tabular format. To do this, use the keyboard shortcutCTRL + Tand select the data. For this purpose, our source data will look somewhat like this:
3. Apply Appropriate Formulae
It’s crucial to ensure that you’re using the correct formulae, or else your data will be inaccurate and misleading.
For our example, let’s start by counting the number of projects across different categories—started, work-in-progress, or completed. To do this, we’ll need to use theCOUNTIFandCOUNTIFSfunctions.
4. Use Visual Elements, Charts, and Graphs
With the help of the appropriate formulae and visual formatting, you may create meaningful charts or graphs that help you better understand your data. In this example, let’s try to add a chart for completed projects; follow the steps listed below:
For the other rows, select the desired data in theCalculationssheet and repeat the process above for any other charts or graphs you wish to include.
5. Add Interactive Settings and Tabs
you may easily add elements such as heatmaps, icons, slicers, and scroll bars to your dashboard to make it more interesting, informative, and engaging for your audience. Let’s take a closer look at some of them.
Insert Slicers for Interactivity
Slicers are short tabs that allow you to filter the data on your dashboard in real-time. Here’s how to add them to your dashboard:
For our dashboard, we’ll add slicers for the headings—ManagersandProjects. Here’s how to do this:
Add Scroll Bars
Scroll bars allow you to view updated data, which is helpful if you’re looking at something that’s changing over time.
Add a Quick (Project) Overview Tab
To get a quick view of project details, you’re able to import the data from the Pivot Table into your dashboard. We’ll be using the INDEX function, as shown below. Our data array consists of cells B8 through K40 in the Pivot Table Tab.
To bring up the data from our pivot table, we’ll input the function:
Now, our dashboard looks something like this:
Apply Conditional Formatting
Now that we’ve created a quick project overview tab, you might want to highlight project update percentages. You can easilyuse conditional formatting to apply color scalesor data bars to do this. This will allow you to see at a glance which projects are completed and which ones need more work.
Here, we’ve used a three-color scale to highlight the progress of individual projects, as shown below:
Add Heatmaps to View Values Between Dates
Heatmaps are visualization tools that can be useful to highlight patterns within your data. For example, you could use a heatmap to show the number of times visitors clicked on different parts of your webpage.
First, you’ll need to create a table with the data you want to see mapped out. In our example, we’ve calculated the project count between two dates using the COUNTIFS function, as shown below.
it’s possible to use conditional formatting to apply rules to different parts of your table. The completed dashboard would look like this:
Interactive Excel Dashboards: Analyze and Communicate Key Metrics
Excel dashboards are a great way to visualize data, and we hope this guide can help you create one specific to your needs. Interactive and dynamic, these useful tools can aid decision-makers in a quick and easy analysis of relevant data.
With just a dash or two of creativity, Excel spreadsheets can go far beyond the norm, and it’s possible to create something truly engaging and presentable.
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