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Excel dashboards require a different way of thinking about excel, the features that excel provides and the communication of data. The presentation of excel dashboards for performance reporting are based on key principles of visual design.

They require a different way of thinking about excel and the communication of data. They are resource intensive at the beginning as you are trying to establish the information requirements of your audiences. This can be at various levels such as strategic and operational. You also need to have a good data model - pivot tables are great for this job. There are many other principles you should keep in mind.

One page display

When designing your excel dashboard don't over do it with unnecessary visual elements as it can make it look too busy. We are trying to communicate the data quickly and without too much study or thought. Sometimes you will need to think differently about what the message is and how to communicate it. Existing performance indicators will be a start. Don't include every bit of data in a dashboard. The information should show progress towards key objectives and priorities. The other point here is that if something is out with your line of sight, then it can't be viewed quickly or possibly missed altogether. When you print your dashboard, it should also fit to a single page.

Simple to understand

Also, excel dashboards should signal when more action is required through the use of visual attributes. When developing an excel dashboard, it is advisable to start with a mock-up of the performance information that is required and work backwards to the point where data is gathered. They should help to visually identify trends and patterns quickly without confusion. In other words, if it doesn't communicate any information about the data then don't display it. Examples of this could be logos, pictures and 3D charts.

Add interactivity

The position of your excel dashboard components will vary in importance to your reader. Usually, the upper-left and middle-left of a page generally gathers more attention than the bottom right. It is a bit like a web page.

Find out about the latest guide and examples about developing your own excel dashboard. Read more about creating an executive dashboard.

Technorati Tags: communication, Computers, Dashboards, Education, excel, management, performance, performance reporting, pivot data, pivot tables, reports, spreadsheets

Tags: communication, Computers, Dashboards, Education, excel, management, performance, performance reporting, pivot data, pivot tables, reports, spreadsheets

Using the Copy and Paste commands in Microsoft Excel, does not just copy the cell data; the formatting, style and number formats are also copied. The Paste Special command allows you to be selective about what you are pasting. The Paste Special command can be used to import elements from other programs into Excel using Windows Object Linking and Embedding. When doing so, the option "Paste Link" can be used to create a link to the original data rather than pasting in a copy of it.

When copying data from within an Excel spreadsheet, the Paste Special command offers a set of options which are unique to the Excel environment. Interestingly enough, the Paste Special command is only available if the Excel data is copied rather than cut. Note also that it is often useful to paste over the original data, using the options in the Paste Special dialog to transform the original data in some way. Let's now look at the key options which are available when using the Paste Special command.

If the option "All" is chosen, Excel will paste all the data on the clipboard in much the same way as it would do if the ordinary Paste command had been used.

Selecting "Formulas" causes Excel to ignore any cell formatting and paste only the data contained in the cells being copied. (The term "formulas" is used in a broad sense here and does not imply that Excel will only copy cells that contain formulas.)

You may well find the "Values" option particularly useful: basically, it can be used to "freeze" dynamic data. Like the "Formulas" option, "Values" causes Excel to paste only data and ignore formatting. The key distinction is that if the copied cell contains a formula, Excel will paste the calculated result of the formula rather than the formula itself.

Selecting "Formats" is a bit like using the Format Painter tool. It pastes the formatting from the copied cells but does not paste any data.

The "Comments" options copies only comments that were in the source range, ignoring all other data.

Similarly, the "Validation" option will copy only cells that have had validation rules applied to them.

Hopefully, this has given you an idea of how the Paste Special command works. I'll just mention one final option: "Transpose". This option reverses the orientation of the original data, so that rows become columns and vice versa.

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The alignment section of the Home Tab of the Excel 2007 ribbon is home to a number of options relating to the way in which your data is position within the cell. The most familiar and most frequently used icons in this section are the three relating to the horizontal position your data: left, centre and right. However you'll notice that when you activate the cells of an unformatted worksheet, none of the three alignment icons is highlighted. This indicates that none of them is the default. The reason for this is that Excel treats data alignment differently depending on the data type.

If you type text in a cell, your text is aligned on the left; if you type a number, the number is aligned on the right; if you type a date, it is also aligned on the right. To set the horizontal alignment, you can either select a range of cells or click on a column letter to highlight the entire column then click on one of the alignment icons.

Haven chosen one type of horizontal alignment, you can change it in two ways. You can either click on a different form of alignment or click again on the already selected alignment. For example, if your text is centred and you click on the Centre button a second time, this deactivates centre alignment and returns you to the default alignment which, for text, is left. Thus we have, effectively, four types of horizontal alignment: left, centre, right and unspecified (or default), which is the alignment that applies when none of the alignment buttons is highlighted.

Haven chosen one type of horizontal alignment, you can change it in two ways. You can either click on a different form of alignment or click again on the already selected alignment. For example, if your text is centred and you click on the Centre button a second time, this deactivates centre alignment and returns you to the default alignment which, for text, is left. Thus we have, effectively, four types of horizontal alignment: left, centre, right and unspecified (or default), which is the alignment that applies when none of the alignment buttons is highlighted.

Excel also allows you to specify vertical alignment. This setting normally only becomes apparent when you increase the height of the cell and this time there is a definite default which is that text is aligned at the bottom of the cell. This setting applies to text, dates and numbers alike.

The alignment option also includes the ability to change the orientation of text within the cell. This is particularly useful in those situations where the headings are wider than the data within the cells. To change the vertical orientation of your text, you simply select the cells in question and then choose the appropriate orientation in the Alignment dialogue.

The alignment option also includes the ability to change the orientation of text within the cell. This is particularly useful in those situations where the headings are wider than the data within the cells. To change the vertical orientation of your text, you simply select the cells in question and then choose the appropriate orientation in the Alignment dialogue.

If you rotate your column headings by 90 degrees, you can usually make the columns much narrower. Excel has a very useful way of doing this: simply select all the columns that contain data then in the Cell group of the Home Tab of the Excel Ribbon, choose Format then AutoFit Columns. This command makes each of the highlighted columns no wider than it needs to be in order to display all the data it contains.

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