In a world where data drives decisions, learning how to create a dashboard in Excel can become your ultimate game-changer. This multifunctional tool is used by professionals globally to comb through complex data and transform it into user-friendly visuals. While Excel’s potential may seem daunting for some, you’ll be surprised to discover how its dashboard capabilities can be easily harnessed with a few clever techniques.
In this blog post, we will dive into the key steps in creating your own Excel dashboard, providing you with a comprehensive guide to simplify data interpretation and improve efficiency in your workflow. Let’s get started!
What is an Excel Dashboard?
An Excel dashboard is an interactive, user-friendly tool that consolidates and displays data summaries, metrics, and key performance indicators (KPIs) from various sources. It gives a visual overview of critical business data in a format that’s easy to read and interpret.
These dashboards are flexible and customizable, allowing users to filter, drill down, or slice data in real time to support informed decision-making. Here are a few more benefits of using an Excel dashboard:
Gives you a detailed overview of your business’ Key Performance Indicators at a glance
Adds a sense of accountability as different people and departments can see the areas of improvement
Provides powerful analytical capabilities and complex calculations
Helps you make better decisions for your business
7 Steps To Create A Dashboard In Excel
Here’s a simple step-by-step guide on how to create a dashboard in Excel.
Step 1: Import the necessary data into Excel
No data. No dashboard.
So the first thing to do is to bring data into Microsoft Excel.
If your data already exists in Excel, do a victory dance because you’re lucky you can skip this step.
If that isn’t the case, we’ve got to warn you that importing data to Excel can be a bit bothersome. However, there are multiple ways to do it.
To import data, you can:
Copy and paste it
Use an API like Supermetrics or Open Database Connectivity (ODBC)
Use Microsoft Power Query, an Excel add-in
The most suitable way will ultimately depend on your data file type, and you may have to research the best ways to import data into Excel.
Step 2: Set up your workbook
Now that your data is in Excel, it’s time to insert tabs to set up your workbook.
Open a new Excel workbook and add two or more worksheets (or tabs) to it.
For example, let’s say we create three tabs.
Name the first worksheet as ‘Raw Data,’ the second as ‘ChartData,’ and the third as ‘Dashboard.’
This makes it easy to compare the data in your Excel file.
Here, we’ve collected raw data of four projects: A, B, C, and D.
The data includes:
The month of completion
The budget for each project
The number of team members that worked on each project
The raw data worksheet you created in your workbook must be in an Excel tableformat, with each data point recorded in cells.
Some people call this step “cleaning your data” because this is the time to spot any typos or in-your-face errors.
Don’t skip this, or you won’t be able to use any Excel formula later on.
Step 4: Data analysis
While this step might just tire your brain out, it’ll help create the right dashboard for your needs.
Take a good look at all the raw data you’ve gathered, study it, and determine what you want to use in the dashboard sheet.
Add those data points to your ‘Chart Data’ worksheet.
For example, we want our chart to highlight the project name, the month of completion, and the budget. So we copy these three Excel data columns and paste them into thechartdata tab.
Here’s a tip: Ask yourself what the purpose of the dashboard is.
In our example, we want to visualize the expenses of different projects.
Knowing the purpose should ease the job and help you filter out all the unnecessary data.
Analyzing your data will also help you understand the different tools you may want to use in your dashboard.
Some of the options include:
Charts: to visualize data
Excel formulas: for complex calculations and filtering
Conditional formatting: to automate the spreadsheet’s responses to specific data points
PivotTable: to sort, reorganize, count, group, and sum data in a table
Power Pivot: to create data models and work with large data sets
What’s a dashboard without visuals, right?
The next step is to determine the visuals and the dashboard design that best represents your data.
You should mainly pay attention to the different chart types Excel gives you, like:
Bar chart: compare values on a graph with bars
Waterfall chart: view how an initial value increases and decreases through a series of alterations to reach an end value
Gauge chart: represent data in a dial. Also known as a speedometer chart
Pie chart: highlight percentages and proportional data
Pivot chart: summarize your data in a table full of statistics
Step 6: Create your Excel dashboard
You now have all the data you need, and you know the purpose of the dashboard.
The only thing left to do is build the Excel dashboard.
To explain the process of creating a dashboard in Excel, we’ll use a clustered column chart.
A clustered column chart consists of clustered, horizontal columns that represent more than one data series.
Start by clicking on the dashboard worksheetor tab that you created in your workbook.
Then click on ‘Insert’ > ‘Column’ > ‘Clustered column chart’.
See the blank box? That’s where you’ll feed your spreadsheet data.
Just right-click on the blank box and then click on ‘Select data’
Then, go to your ‘Chart Data’ tab and select the data you wish to display on your dashboard.
Make sure you don’t select the column headers while selecting the data.
Hit enter, and voila, you’ve created a column chart dashboard.
If you notice your horizontal axis doesn’t represent what you want, you can edit it.
All you have to do is: select the chart again > right-click > select data.
The Select Data Source dialogue box will appear.
Here, you can click on ‘Edit’ in the ‘Horizontal (Category) Axis Labels’ and then select the data you want to show on the X-axis from the ‘Chart Data’ tab again.
Want to give a title to your chart?
Select the chart and then click on Design > chart layouts. Choose a layout that has a chart title text box.
Click on the text box to type in a new title.
Step 7: Customize your dashboard
Another step?
You can also customize the colors, fonts, typography, and layouts of your charts.
Additionally, if you wish to make an interactive dashboard, go for a dynamic chart.
A dynamic chart is a regular Excel chart where data updates automatically as you change the data source.
You can bring interactivity using Excel features like:
Macros: automate repetitive actions (you may have to learn Excel VBA for this)
Drop-down lists: allow quick and limited data entry
Slicers: lets you filter data on a Pivot Table
And we’re done. Congratulations!
Now you know how to make a dashboard in Excel.
We know what you’re thinking: do I really need these steps when I could just use templates?Bonus: Create a flowchart using Excel!
3 Excel Dashboard Templates
Save yourself the trouble of creating an Excel dashboard from scratch with these handy downloadable Microsoft Excel dashboard templates.
Excel may be the go-to tool for many businesses for all kinds of data.
However, that doesn’t make it an ideal medium for creating dashboards.
Here’s why:
1. A ton of manual data feeding
You’ve probably seen some great Excel workbooks over time.
They’re so clean and organized with just data after data and several charts.
But that’s what you see.
Ask the person who made the Excel sheets, and they’ll tell you how they’ve aged twice while making an Excel dashboard, and they probably hate their job because of it.
It’s just too much manual effort for feeding data.
And we live in a world where robots do surgeries on humans!
2. High possibilities of human error
As your business grows, so does your data.
And more data means opportunities for human error.
Whether it’s a typo that changed the number ‘5’ to the letter ‘T’ or an error in the formula, it’s so easy to mess up data on Excel.
If only it were that easy to create an Excel dashboard instead.
3. Limited integrations
Integrating your software with other apps allows you to multitask and expand your scope of work. It also saves you the time spent toggling between windows.
However, you can’t do this on Excel, thanks to its limited direct integration abilities.
The only option you have is to take the help of third-party apps like Zapier.
That’s like using one app to be able to use another.
Want to find out more ways in which Excel dashboards flop? Check out our article on Excel project management and Excel alternatives.
This begs the question: why go through so much trouble to create a dashboard?
Life would be much easier if there were software that created dashboards with just a few clicks.
