The dashboard in your car is one of the key tools you use to monitor how it’s running, so it’s appropriate that the business world has borrowed the term and applied it to a series of graphs and key information that fits onto one page.
A dashboard view of your business’s performance, if done well, provides an at-a-glance view that helps you quickly monitor the key indicators of performance.
If you’re responsible for taking raw data and making sense of it in management reports then they are a great way to save time because they are set up as templates.
You can update the report by simply entering the new month or reporting period, selecting a different region, division, or product etc.
Dashboard principles ensure you follow four rules to make your life easier:
1) Set them up as templates – rather than spend hours massaging your raw data (that you exported from your finance system or other database) so you can present it to management. And then repeat the process again next month. Use formulas to extract the information without the need for much manipulation of the raw data in the first instance.
2) They are easy to read and draw conclusions from – using small graphs and displayed on one page it’s easy for management to make comparisons, recognise trends and correlations in your data.
3) Put performance in context – bringing information into your dashboard from both your internal systems and external data sources can give your data context and help management understand why company performance is trending the way it is. External information might come in the form of population or employment trends, industry benchmarks, or may simply combine information from different departments within your company.
4) Easy to update and change – instead of creating new reports from the same data, simply select new parameters from the one dashboard template. Using drop-down lists and formulas you’re able to quickly switch between month, region, product or any other category you wish to measure.
Dashboards are not only the domain of the large Corporate’s, small business can benefit greatly too.
In fact the small business owner is typically time poor so it’s imperative they’re able to get their key performance information quickly and easily. One of the reasons small business fail is the owner never realises where the problem is.
In my online Excel Dashboard course I cover everything you need to know to create dashboards and more, so you can create insightful, professional quality reports that’ll make you the ‘Guru’ in your organisation.
Hi , In am a regular Excel user and I want to know how I can create a automatic calculating food costing dash board for using variety food expense calculation ?
Hi Shaji, it’s great to hear you’re keen to build your own dashboards. We don’t have any examples of food costing dashboards and any design would be dictated by your needs and available data. I recommend you learn the fundamentals of building dashboards so that you have the necessary skills to build the dashboard that meets your requirements. Sorry I can’t give you a more specific answer. Mynda
Hi
I recently applied for a job but then a question was asked a about KIP and Dashboard. I have knowledge base but never have practice experience.
Do you have a training on how to create a KIP and write a report.
Thanks
Nana
Hi Nana,
You might like to consider my Excel Dashboard course here. KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator. It’s just a series of measures/charts that display your most important metrics. The Dashboard course will teach you how to structure your data, what charts to use for different data types and objectives etc. You can find out more on the course page linked to above.
If you have further questions, please email us at website at myonlinetraininghub.com
Mynda
I’m dealing with dashboards since 2014. I’m Excel Lover and Expert. I get pleasure every time when I watch your videos regarding Excel Tools…
Wish you all the best…
Thanks for your kind words, Ilgar! 🙂
Mynda,
I love your tutorials. they’re to the point and easy to follow, really helpful. Pls keep up the great work.
I am inspired by you and am building a dashboard. Some of the graphs I want to show are using a combo charts (stacked bar+ line charts). I have no problems creating the combo charts and do the formatting of changing colors for the different categories, etc. However, when I changed the information on the sliders/ filters in the pivot table, the formatting is all messed up. The colors for the categories are gone, and the line charts changed to a stacked bar every time I used the sliders/ filters. Is it something that can be fixed easily?
thanks again to you and your team on your great work
Jan
Hi Jan,
Thanks for your kind words. It’s great to know you’re implementing the techniques in your own work.
The Pivot Chart issues you describe are well known. You could try removing all filters/Slicer selections and then applying the formatting. If the Slicer selection results in a field having no values then the chart will adjust accordingly and this can result in the combo settings being lost. To resolve this, you can try setting the field to ‘show items with no values’ in the Field Settings.
Mynda
Dear Mynda Treacy
I am starting a small business with my family and we do not have money to invest in new software for the sales dashboard. I love the way it looks but alas I struggle to create one.
Do you have a free template I could populate with :
Dates for client meetings.
New Client Acquisitions.
Potential Sales (%)
Sales Value.
Hi Rodwell,
Sorry, I don’t have any templates that will suit your requirements. It’s unlikely you’ll find one that will do everything you want. For that reason I prefer to teach you how to build your own reports so you can have exactly what you want.
Mynda
I have loved the dashboard course and the power query course. Now I have an opportunity to make a dashboard for my boss. Here is what I can not figure out.
My graphs/charts are built on the data accumulating month to month. right now I have JAN to JUN 2015 data. 6 months is the max I want to view at one time on the dashboard graph/chart. The data will be on hidden worksheets. How do I limit the “view” to 6 months with data continually being added? For example next year, there will be JAN 2015 to DEC 2016 data. If the chart continually expands the data will be too small to view. Can I add a scroll bar to the chart?
I hope this makes sense.
Hi Will,
You can certainly use a scroll bar to build a dynamic range for your chart. See sessions 5.12, 5.13 and 5.14 of my online Excel Dashboard course where I teach you how to build dynamic ranges you can use in your charts. You can link the dynamic range to the scroll bar output to allow the user to choose the range.
Kind regards,
Mynda
Hi, I am so looking forward to sign up for your next Dashboard course. When will it be available?
Hi Stelline,
The next course will open on October 7, 2014. My new Power Pivot course will also be available in a bundle with the Dashboard course, and at an introductory price 🙂
Looking forward to having you join the course.
Mynda
Are you going to offer the Dashboard course in April again? if so, how do I sign up?
Hi Jim,
Yes, the next Dashboard course will open April 22, 2014. You can sign up here anytime after April 22.
Note: registration closes May 8, 2014.
I look forward to having you join the class. Please let me know if I can help with any other questions you might have.
Kind regards,
Mynda.
There’s certainly a lot to learn about this topic. I love all the points you made.
🙂 Cheers, Hayley.
Important for regular operations