My Friend and long time Microsoft Excel MVP, Jon Peltier has released a wonderful little excel charting utility called Cluster Stack Chart Utility.
Although my work rarely involves constructing clustered stack charts, out of curiosity I have mailed Jon and asked him if he could send me a copy of it so that I can review the product and recommend it to PHD reader community. He is kind enough to mail the add-in to me and here goes my review of the tool.
First the Basics: What is a cluster stack chart?
A cluster stack chart is a stacked column chart that also has clusters. It is an ideal type of chart to show performance of multiple products over last few quarters (years) in several regions. A very common need if you are doing sales reporting. Here are few more situations where you would need cluster stack chart:
- Efforts across various activities in each of your projects for the last few years
- Department-wise employee count in each of the branches in the last few years
- Profits for each of the products in each of the regions in the last few years
Ok, how do you make cluster stack chart in Microsoft Excel?
You can make a cluster stack chart in excel by massaging your data. Assuming you have fictitious data like this:
You can make a cluster stack chart by dividing the data in multiple series with few blank values and then plotting a regular stacked column chart. Check out the entire process on Jon’s site itself.
But, I can assure you that it is a very lengthy process and repeating it whenever you need a cluster stack chart is going to be painful. And that brings us to,
Why and what is PTS Cluster Stack Chart Utility?
It is an excel add-in that sits tight in your menu (and has its own toolbar too). To generate a cluster stack chart, all you need to do is, select your data and click on the “Clustered Stacked Chart” from either PTS Charts Menu or the PTS Charts Toolbar.
The data entry dialog looks something like this:
All you need to do is, select the data, specify how many stacks you want and tell it how many items are there in each of the stacks. When you are done, click “OK” and it creates a new sheet with your data neatly arranged in a table form (that is required for generating a clustered stacked chart) and creates a clustered stacked chart for you.
What are my impressions on this utility?
Clustered stacked charts are one of the popular charts used by lots of business users and it is strange that these are not included as part of default chart package in MS Excel (and other professional spreadsheet tools). Still, you can make them, thanks to techniques provided by Jon himself. But not without lot of manual steps. And that is where the clustered stacked chart utility can help you.
The tool comes with simple yet really useful help documentation. You can checkout the cluster stack chart documentation online if you are looking for a step by step tutorial on using the cluster stack utility.
The only gripe I have about the tool is that it uses default formatting. So if you have the excel 2003”s default color scheme, this is how your charts will look when you use the tool:
But as I pointed out, you can easily correct that using formatting of your choice without breaking the functionality and it just takes few clicks.
Should you buy the cluster stack chart utility ?
The utility is priced at $ 29 but you must buy before Feb 15, so click here (after Feb 15 the price becomes $ 39). Even if you make 2 cluster stack charts per year, you could easily save 1 hour using PTS utility and that means, you have easily extracted more than your money’s worth using this little tool.
This is a very good tool for people in finance, marketing or management positions who need to constantly make cluster stack charts using excel. Also, this tool can be a very effective way to make cluster stack charts if you ever need one for your website or project report.
So what are you waiting for? Just head over to PTS Chart utilities page and buy the cluster stack chart utility. While you are there check out the other charting utilities he has: waterfall chart and box & whisker plot utility.
PS: I have used my affiliate code to recommend this product because I think the cluster stack utility totally kicks ass. Even if I had no affiliate code, I would have recommended it, because this is a wonderful tool and Jon is an awesome person who likes to help others and I would like to help him in return by recommending his utility. So go ahead and buy it now, because the price goes up after Feb 15.
18 Responses to “Best Charts to Compare Actual Values with Targets – What is your take?”
Great post. I can't vote, though, because the answer I want to put down is "it depends". As with all visualisations, you've got to take into account your audience, your purpose, technical skills, where it will be viewed, etc.
I'm with Andy: It depends. Some I would use, some I might use, some I won't touch with a barge pole.
Naturally I have comments 🙂
The dial gauge, though familiar, is less easy to read than a linear type of chart (thermometer or bullet). It's really no better than the traffic lights, because all it can really tell you is which category the point falls in: red, yellow, or green.
By the same token, pie charts are so familiar, people don't know they can't read them. Remember how long it takes kids to learn to read an analog clock?
Bullet charts don't show trends.
With any of the charts that have a filled component and a marker or ine component, it makes more sense to use the filled component (area/ column) for target, and the lines or markers for actual.
[...] Best Charts to Compare Actual values with Targets (or Budgets … [...]
I voted for #6 even though I agree with the other comments that it depends.
The majority of the votes are for the #2, thermometer chart. I still have yet to understand what happens when you are above plan/goal, which was brought up in yesterday's post.
Also, I agree with Jon in that it would be better to flip the series and make the filled part the target or goal and the line or marker the actual.
I am also a fan of using text when appropriate if the data is among other metrics in a type of dashboard. Calling it out by saying actual and % achievement is a good option.
Another "it depends" vote. Are you just looking at one or are you comparing a number of targets with actuals? You didn't include a text box. The problem with sentences is that they can get lost in a page of gray text. A text box can call attention to the numbers and line them up effectively.
I'm with Jon: "Some I would use, some I might use, some I won’t touch with a barge pole" and I'm surprised that some of your readers voted for the last group.
Jon says:
With any of the charts that have a filled component and a marker or line component, it makes more sense to use the filled component (area/ column) for target, and the lines or markers for actual.
Why does this make more sense? I like 6 the way it is, although I would use a heavy dash for the plan/target marker.
"It depends" is also my take. What I usually try to drill into my clients dashboard design is the fu ndamental difference between spot results (am I on target for this month) and long term trends.. I always try to create 3 different set of graphs to represent real perormance:
- spot results vs objectives
- cumulative results vs objectives
- long-term trend (moving average) mostly) to see where we're going
[...] Best Charts to Compare Actual Values with Targets – What is your take? (tags: excel charts) [...]
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Jon says:
With any of the charts that have a filled component and a marker or line component, it makes more sense to use the filled component (area/ column) for target, and the lines or markers for actual.
Why does this make more sense? I like 6 the way it is, although I would use a heavy dash for the plan/target marker.
I totally agree, Bob. I would normally favour a line for the target and a column for the actual, you can see quite easily then which columns break through the line, then.
[...] best charts to compare actual values with targets — den Status mal anders zeigen, z. B. als Tacho [...]
Thermometer charts: "Not appropriate when actual values exceed targets" - this is easily solved by making the "mercury" portion a different color from the border, then you can clearly see where the expected range ends and the actual values keep going.
People seem to knock gauges quite a bit in dashboarding, but trying to show comparison of realtime data between operating sites and targets for each site can easily be done with a bank of gauges that have the optimal operating points at 12 o'clock.
The human eye is great at pattern stripping, and any deviation of a gauge from the expected 12 position will quickly register with an operator and attract his attention. Using a colour background, or meter edge, will also indicate the sensitivity of a particular site.
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I am wondering how will the plotting work, for some of the targets which may have been achieved before time. E.g. for the month of Jul the target was 226 and the actual was 219. So the chart will show a deficit in meeting the target by 7 points but what if this 7 may have been completed earlier in month of June. So ideally it not a deficit.