Admittedly, that can be overwhelming-which is why it’s important to get clear on the why of your dashboard first.
When you start familiarizing yourself with dashboards in Excel, you’ll quickly realize that there are tons of options. You can leave those last two tabs totally blank for now! The important part is just to get your workbook set up and ready to work with. Finally, create a tab labeled “Dashboard” where your various charts will appear. Then, create a second tab labeled “Chart Data.” That tab is where you’ll store only the data that needs to be fed into different charts for the dashboard. Name your first tab (the one that has all of your raw data on it) with something you’ll readily recognize-such as “Data” or “Raw Data.”
To create a dashboard, you’re going to need three separate sheets (or tabs) within your Excel workbook. That way, if you make an error, you’ll be able to retrieve the data that you started with. TIP: It’s best to keep your original dataset somewhere else. Want a quick way to search for duplicates? Highlight your entire dataset and then click the “Remove Duplicates” button. Now is also an excellent time to search for any duplicate information that needs to be deleted, because each row of data needs to be unique in order to utilize the dashboard feature-otherwise you’ll be double counting. It’s also wise to briefly analyze your data and make sure that no glaring typos or errors jump out at you. If your existing spreadsheet is a bit of a jumbled mess, take some time to clean it up and ensure that things are organized into their appropriate rows and columns. When working with data within Excel, it’s important that each piece of information lives within its own cell.
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So, your best bet is to research how to import your specific data format. There are numerous ways to do this with ranging complexities-depending on where your data exists currently. If it’s already there? Great-there’s nothing more you need to do with this step.īut, if not? You’ll need to import it into an Excel workbook. In order to create a dashboard, your data first needs to exist in Excel. Here are a few things you’ll want to do before getting started on a dashboard: 1. However, before doing so, it’s essential that you lay the appropriate groundwork first. But, Excel has tons of capabilities to create as complex of a dashboard as you require.īefore building the Dashboard: what you should knowĭata visualization sounds like a real party, doesn’t it? We can tell that you’re ready and raring to get started building your own dashboards. This example is relatively straightforward. Into this quick pie chart that shares a breakdown of where money was spent during January:
Needless to say, dashboards have a wide array of uses-from budgeting or project management to marketing or sales reporting.įor a simple example, I used a dashboard to transform this spreadsheet of first quarter expenses: They turn data into information (yes, those are two different things!) by creating different charts, tables, and other visual elements that give you a high-level overview of that data.Ī dashboard simplifies that otherwise complex data you have in your spreadsheet and transforms it into something visual that’s far easier for you to grasp and, thus, utilize. But, all of those rows and columns are often impossible to process and understand. The simplest way to think of a dashboard is as a visual representation of data.
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