Dashboards for Excel

The book takes a hands-on approach to developing dashboards, from instructing users on advanced Excel techniques to addressing dashboard pitfalls common in the real world. Dashboards for Excel is your key to creating informative, actionable, and interactive dashboards and decision support systems. Throughout the book, the reader is challenged to think about Excel and data analytics differently—that is, to think outside the cell. This book shows you how to create dashboards in Excel quickly and effectively.

In this book, you learn how to:

• Apply data visualization principles for more effective dashboards
• Employ dynamic charts and tables to create dashboards that are constantly up-to-date and providing fresh information
• Use understated yet powerful formulas for Excel development
• Apply advanced Excel techniques mixing formulas and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) to create interactive dashboards
• Create dynamic systems for decision support in your organization
• Avoid common problems in Excel development and dashboard creation
• Get started with the Excel data model, PowerPivot, and Power Query

What you’ll learn

• Learn the visualization tools, charts, tables, and graphs important to management.
• Understand what management doesn’t want to see in a report
• Turn around dashboards faster and cheaper than ever before
• Understand the key role dashboards play in an organization
• Analyze real-world dashboards to apply important features to your own organization
• Utilize understated, but powerful, Excel formulas and VBA code
• Avoid common pitfalls in Excel development and dashboard creation
• Get started with the Excel data model, PowerPivot, and Power Query

Who this book is for

This book is for many people. It’s for the developer who isn’t satisfied by accepting Excel’s so-called limitations, who feels that with some creativity, spreadsheets can become a powerful and informative decision engine. It’s for the Excel user who has spent hours—even outside of work—experimenting with Excel formulas and macros in an attempt to find a better, more efficient way to complete a task. It’s for the user who believes in the power of the spreadsheet.