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

• 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

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.

Part I. Dashboards and Data Visualization

1. Introduction to Dashboard and Decision Support Development

2. A Critical View of Information Visualization

3. The Principles of Data Visualization in Microsoft Excel

4. The Excel Data Presentation Library

Part II. Excel Dashboard Design Tools and Concepts

5. Getting Started: Thinking Outside the Cell

6. Visual Basic for Applications for Excel, a Refresher

7. Avoiding Common Pitfalls in Development and Design

8. The Elements of Good Excel Dashboards and Decision Support Systems

Part III. Formulas, Controls, and Charts

9. Introducing Formula Concepts

10. Advanced Formula Concepts

11. Metrics: Performance and Context

12. Charts with Heart (or, How to Avoid a Chart Attack)

13. Creating an Interactive Gantt Chart Dashboard

14. An Interactive Gantt Chart Dashboard, Data Visualization

15. An Interactive Gantt Chart Dashboard, Data Details on Demand

Part IV. From User Interface to Presentation

16. Working with Form Controls

17. Getting Input from Users

18. Storage Patterns for User Input

19. Building for Sensitivity Analysis

20. Perfecting the Presentation

Part V. Data Models, PowerPivot, and Power Query

21. Data Model Capabilities of Excel 2013

22. Advanced Modeling with Slicers, Filters, and Pivot Tables

23. Introduction to Power Query

24. Introduction to PowerPivot