This post is part of our chartbusters series.
Ever since I was a child, I was fascinated by Paris (and Eiffel Tower). So much so that I even took french lessons during my post graduation in the hopes of one day traveling to the romantic land.
Recently, I had opportunity to visit Paris, albeit for just a few hours (I had a 12 hour lay-over in Paris between flights). I went to see the Eiffel Tower and it looked just as beautiful and majestic as it did in my imaginations.
But this is not a travel blog, it is a charting and excel community. So I have something for you as well.
During my visit to Eiffel tower, I took the stairs to 2nd floor and along the way they have a handful of visualizations explaining the tower. I found them quite interesting and well made. Here, I have listed down 4 simple, yet very effective visualization lessons for all of us.
Lesson 1: Compare with known things in your charts
Eiffel tower is a huge tourist attraction with distinguished history. But you have to tell about it to scores of visitors everyday in easy to understand manner. Comparison is a very effective technique. It raises the curiosity and connects well with audience.
For eg. see how they have explained the fact that “Eiffel tower used 60 tonnes of paint”.
Lesson 2: Get creative, don’t always fallback on bar / pie charts
We all know that bar charts are very effective. But too many bars would make the charts look bland. Experimentation could lead to some creative solutions to bar (or pie) fatigue. [Related: 5 ways to dress up your charts]
For eg. see how they have compared the height of Eiffel tower with other familiar landmarks (it is still a bar chart, but creatively implemented)
Lesson 3: Sometimes just numbers will do
While charts add a lot of value (and provide insight), sometimes you want to limit yourself to just numbers.
For eg. they have shown the number 336 in large font along with an illustration of flood-lights to tell us that 336 floodlights light up the tower in the night.
Lesson 4: Focus on the the tower, not on charts
This, probably is the most important lesson of all. We are all here to build our own Eiffel tower and show it off to others. So it is important to focus on the tower, the charts are secondary.
I have made a small presentation with various visualizations showcased on the Eiffel Tower, each one teaches a valuable lesson on charting and story-telling. Take a look at it below:
if you are not able to view it in feed reader / e-mail, click here
Other charting lessons:
13 Responses to “Using pivot tables to find out non performing customers”
To avoid the helper column and the macro, I would transpose the data into the format shown above (Name, Year, Sales). Now I can show more than one year, I can summarize - I can do many more things with it. ASAP Utilities (http://www.asap-utilities.com) has a new experimental feature that can easily transpose the table into the correct format. Much easier in my opinion.
David
Of course with alternative data structure, we can easily setup a slicer based solution so that everything works like clockwork with even less work.
David, I was just about to post the same!
In Contextures site, I remember there's a post on how to do that. Clearly, the way data is layed out on the very beginning is critical to get the best results, and even you may thinkg the original layout is the best way, it is clearly not. And that kind of mistakes are the ones I love ! because it teaches and trains you to avoid them, and how to think on the data structure the next time.
Eventually, you get to that place when you "see" the structure on the moment the client tells you the request, and then, you realized you had an ephiphany, that glorious moment when data is no longer a mistery to you!!!
Rgds,
Chandoo,
If the goal is to see the list of customers who have not business from yearX, I would change the helper column formula to :
=IF(selYear="all",sum(C4:M4),sum(offset(C4:M4,,selyear-2002,1,columns(C4:M4)-selyear+2002)))This formula will sum the sales from Selected Year to 2012.
JMarc
If you are already using a helper column and the combox box runs a macro after it changes, why not just adjust the macro and filter the source data?
Regards
I gotta say, it seems like you are giving 10 answers to 10 questions when your client REALLY wants to know is: "What is the last year "this" customer row had a non-zero Sales QTY?... You're missing the forest for the trees...
Change the helper column to:
=IFERROR(INDEX(tblSales[[#Headers],[Customer name]:[Sales 2012]],0,MATCH(9.99999999999999E+307,tblSales[[#This Row],[Customer name]:[Sales 2012]],1)),"NO SALES")
And yes, since I'm matching off of them for value, I would change the headers to straight "2002" instead of "Sales 2002" but you sort the table on the helper column and then and there you can answer all of your questions.
Hi thanks for this. Just can't figure out how you get the combo box to control the pivot table. Can you please advise?
Cheers
@Kevin.. You are welcome. To insert a combo box, go to Developer ribbon > Insert > form controls > combo box.
For more on various form controls and how to use them, please read this: http://chandoo.org/wp/2011/03/30/form-controls/
Thanks Chandoo. But I know how to insert a combobox, I was more referring to how does in control the year in the pivot table? Or is this obvious? I note that if I select the Selected Year from the PivotTable Field List it says "the field has no itens" whereas this would normally allow you to change the year??
Thanks again
worked it out thanks...
when =data!Q2 changes it changes the value in column N:N and then when you do a refreshall the pivottable vlaues get updated
Still not sure why PivotTable Field List says “the field has no itens"?? I created my own pivot table and could not repeat that.
Hi, I put the sales data in range(F5:P19) and added a column D with the title 'Last sales in year'. After that, in column D for each customer, the simple formula
=2000+MATCH(1000000,E5:P5)
will provide the last year in which that particular customer had any sales, which can than easily be managed by autofilter.
Somewhat longer but perhaps a bit more solid (with the column titles in row 4):
=RIGHT(INDEX($F$4:$P$19,1,MATCH(1000000,F5:P5)),4)
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