Last week, I received an email from Francis, with the following message.
Hi Channdoo,
I would like to express my gratitude for sharing with me using Excel to create dashboard !
I have spend 2 days over the weekend and learn as much as I could and came up with a dashboard for my company Sales and Marketing Meeting !..
Attached is the print screen…
Without you, this is not Possible !!!
Thanks so much !!! The more I learn, the more I know what I dont know !!!
Readers like Francis inspire me most. Despite doing all the work himself, he showed extreme kindness in emailing and making me happy.
Naturally, I replied to him and asked “if he can share original excel file with dummy data so rest of our readers can learn from what he produced.”
Francis agreed for this and shared a version of dashboard with me.
The Travel Site Dashboard Francis Made:
Here is a screenshot of the dashboard Francis made.
Video Review of the Dashboard in Action:
The image doesnt do justice to the awesome work by him. So I made a short video review of the dashboard (6 min). Watch it below:
Techniques used in this Dashboard:
Francis used a variety of techniques in making this dashboard. Some of the important ideas are,
- Using a bullet chart to show current performance vs. last year (tip: making bullet charts in excel)
- Showing a sortable KPI grid to provide on-demand analysis (tutorial: making KPI dashboards in excel)
- Showing key messages as text at the top (idea: use tweetboards instead of dashboards)
- Adding a month selection option at top (formulas: INDEX and OFFSET)
- Dynamic charts that are connected to drop-down boxes (reference: dynamic charts in excel)
How to Make Dashboards in Excel?
Here is our how to make dashboards in excel page. I am sure it will blow your mind. Go check it out.
Download the Dashboard
Click here to download the source file of this dashboard and play with it. [mirror]
Thank you Francis
Thank you so much for sharing your awesome work with all of us Francis. You inspire me and our readers to go that extra mile. 🙂
Send your tips / downloads for Reader Awesomeness Week:
You too can participate and share what you know by simply filling up online form. Be awesome. (details here)
15 Responses to “Make a Bubble Chart in Excel [15 second tutorial]”
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!
Whyyyyyyyy?
The idea is to tell how to make a bubble chart. I got an e-mail from a reader recently asking how the scatter bubble is made. So I thought a 15 second tutorial would be a good idea to show this.
Did that email go "Dear Chandoo, I know that you scorn bubble charts, but if I don't do one in Excel for my boss then he'll fire my sorry ass, and my children will have to be sold for medical experiments in order for me to be able to afford the upgrade path to Excel 2010"?
If so, fair enough...it's all in the greater good 😉
Chandoo,
I am using excel 2003 and it is not working. The x axis is not the one that I enter in x axis column. Please help! Thanks.
Sorry, after few attempts, I managed to get the right result. I shouldn't select the title (header) of the table and select only the data to produce the right bubble chart.
What's wrong with bubble charts? Is there a better method for displaying scatter plots with lots of overlapping data points? Don't tell me you'd rather jitter!
@Sanwijay: Cool.
@Precious Roy: There is nothing wrong with bubble charts. Infact, it is the only way to show 3 dimensional data (x,y and sizes) without confusing your audience. Jeff is worried that people might misuse the chart. As with any chart, bubbles also have a place and time for using them.
I recommend using bubble charts to show relative performance various products in several regions and similar situations.
Also, human eye is notorious in wrongly estimating the bubble sizes (as we have to measure areas). See http://chandoo.org/wp/2009/07/28/charting-lessons-from-optical-illusions/
We can partially improve bubble charts by adding data labels, but if you have too many bubbles, the labels will clutter the chart and make it look busy.
I can't seem to find a way to plot more than ten bubbles on a chart and need to know how to add more
@KW.. why would such a thing happen. I am sure you can add more bubbles that that. Can you tell us exactly what you are doing...
Example table:
A B C (size)
Me: 25 30 15%
Him: 30 22 11%
Her: 12 30 20%
I am trying to make a bubble chart where the Y axis is A, the X axis is B, and the size of the bubble is C. There should be only 3 bubbles. I keep ending up with six (with the labels being only "Me" and "Her"). My goal is to have three bubbles, one representing each person. Clearly I am doing something wrong. Can you help explain...?
Hi,
I wanted to add data labels to the bubbles. Each bubble represents a different company name. Excel allows me to add the size, legend, x axis values and y axis values. How do I add instead- Company A, B, C, D for the bubbles?
youon you have to choice every data for every company..
ex:create bubble for A company,after that click right> add data label> adjust data labels :format data labels and choose : series name.
i hop u will succeed .
[...] we create a bubble chart with 2 bubbles. 1 for the actual mustache & 1 for target [...]
If we want bubble size to be controlled by one column, but the bubble labels to be controlled by another column, how can this be achieved?
many thanks!!!!