Today we will learn an interesting animation technique that ONLY uses, … wait for it …, Excel Formulas. That is right, we will use simple formulas to animate values in Excel.
Intrigued? Confused? Interested?
First see these Excel animation demos:
Animated icons & fill-color
Animated In-cell Charts
Click here to download the workbook with these examples.
What is the secret sauce behind this animation?
Take 1 portion of crushed basil leaves, 2 portions of grounded roasted coffee beans and mix them with hot water. Add enough sugar and throw it away. 😛
Now, come back to your excel workbook and use circular references to generate the animation effect.
Understanding how Circular References & Iterative Calculation Mode work
In order to get this animation, you should be familiar with two excel magic spells – Circular References & Iterative Calculations. In simple terms,
Circular Reference: is when a cell refers to itself in the formula. For eg. in cell A1, if you write =A1+1, it is a circular reference. The reference can be both direct or in-direct (ie you can refer to cell B1, which refers to A1 again).
Iterative Calculation: If a cell has circular reference, excel can quickly go in to infinite loop (not the place where Apple is head-quartered). To avoid this, we use iterative calculation mode. When you enable this mode, excel solves the cell references only a certain number of times.
Here is an excellent guide on circular references.
How to enable iterative calculation mode?
Simple, go to Excel options > Formulas and then select iterative mode. Change the number of iterations to a large value (so that we can see some animation). Like this:
How to use Circular References & Iterative Mode for Animation?
It doesn’t take a lot of coffee to conclude that using circular references & iterative mode of calculation, we can increment a cell value from 1 to 100 (or 4000, if you fancy).
Assuming you want to increment the value in A1 from 0 to 100, and A2 is used to control the animation (ie if you type “Yes” in a2, only then we increment the values).
In cell A1, we write =IF(A2=”yes”,IF(A1>=100,A1,A1+1),0)
If iterative mode is enabled, when you enter yes in cell A2, you can see the value in A1 going from 0 to 100, very fast.
Now, if you change the formula to =IF(A2=”yes”,IF(A1>=4000,A1,A1+1),0), you can see the cell value in A1 going up from 0 to 4,000 in a few seconds.
But, what about animation?!?
Now that we have the cell A1 changing its value when we want, we just need to link this with conditional formatting to get some magic.
For eg. you can apply conditional formatting on A1 with the following rule to change cell color as the value increases.
Similarly, you can use the value in A1 to draw in-cell charts that grow as the value changes in A1.
Just let your imagination run wild.
Where can you use such animation?
Animation is a powerful attention grabber. I think you can use this type of animation in dashboards to display alerts. For eg. you can highlight portions of dashboard that changed when a different product (or month) is selected.
That said, I strongly recommend against overuse of animation effects. They can quickly become annoying. Not to mention, they are cumbersome to maintain (and add little value).
What are the limitations of Circular Reference based animation?
- You must enable iterative mode of calculation.
- This doesn’t work with charts. Excel charts do not pick up cell values unless the calculation is finished. So you cannot plug values in to charts to expect animated charts. If you are curious to build one, see Daniel’s animated business charts example.
- This can slowdown your workbook: Whenever you run the animation, excel is going to do thousands of calculations and this will slowdown your workbook.
Download Excel Animation Workbook
I have put together a simple workbook showcasing several examples of this technique. Download and play with it.
Excel 2007 link | Excel 2003 link
(Make sure you have turned on the iterative mode.)
Do you find this technique interesting?
To be frank, I find this technique more amusing than useful. But I wrote about it anyway as it shows what is possible with excel. It can be useful in situations where there is too much information and you need to call users attention to something.
What about you? Do you see any practical applications for this technique? Share your ideas and opinions thru comments.
24 Responses to “Free Excel Risk Map Template”
Why didn't you include the mitigation or risk IDs in the chart?
You can easily add such detail by modifying the TEXTJOIN function. Another way to use them is to add a slicer to highlight all risks that have a specific mitigation strategy or team member assigned to them. I left out those bits fto keep the article short.
I tried adding a slicer filter for the mitigation step but the TEXTJOIN is not affected by it. I added a helper column called "Visible" using the AGGREGATE function but I am unable to think of a method to pass that on to the map.
Could you please help, Chandoo?
Thanks
Never mind. I got it working. 🙂
Apologies, I didn't thank you for the file to begin with.
Great concept. thanks!
Awesome.. good to hear that Rajesh and of course you are welcome 🙂
Hello everyone,
Another amazing tutorial, great content and tips! My question is about slicers. How do you add slicers to this matrix? I've added 2 columns in my workbook table (Work Stream and Project Name) and I want to be able to filter (slice) the matrix on Project Name, but having some trouble with this. The slicer works fine in the data table, but how do I connect it to the risk matrix, so that only risk titles show up for the selected project?
Many thanks in advance for your guidance,
MyvJ
Can you create a sheet in live stock market data price change with profit and loss graph with time. which could indicate live profit and loss in each time frame 5minute, 10 minute, 15 minute, 30minute, hourly with some modifications
Hi
I've tried to get your formula to work, but likelihood / impact 1/1 does not seem to work.
Hi Chandoo
Awesome instructions! Thank you so much, this really helped me.
I was wondering if it would be possible to list the Risk ID number along with the Risk Title with a dash in between, rather than a bullet point? I have had a try at this but I keep getting a #VALUE error. I can see it's wrong but can't figure out what it should be instead. If you have time do you mind letting me know what I'm doing wrong?
{=" - " & TEXTJOIN(CHAR(10)&" - ",TRUE,
IF(RiskRegister[Likelihood]=$A17,IF(RiskRegister[Consequence]=F$3,CONCAT(RiskRegister[ID],RiskRegister[Risk Title]),""),""))}
Thank you!
Sally
Hey Sally, You are welcome.
I think the CONCAT inside TEXTJOIN is the culprit. Try this and hopefully you should see the ID too.
{=" - " & TEXTJOIN(CHAR(10)&" - ",TRUE,
IF(RiskRegister[Likelihood]=$A17,IF(RiskRegister[Consequence]=F$3,RiskRegister[ID]&RiskRegister[Risk Title],""),""))}
Hi Chandoo
You're a legend! Thank you so much! I had to make a minor tweak but otherwise it worked perfectly. Here is the tweaked version in case it helps anyone else:
=TEXTJOIN(CHAR(10),TRUE,
IF(RiskRegister[Likelihood]=$A8,IF(RiskRegister[Consequence]=C$3,RiskRegister[ID]&" - "&RiskRegister[Risk Title],""),""))
Thank you again!
Hi, Im not able to change the formula when trying to add risk Id instead of bullet point.
trying this: ="• "&TEXTJOIN(CHAR(10)&"• ";TRUE;IF(risks[Probability of Occurance *]=$C5;IF(risks[Severity of potential Impact *]=H$8;risks[Risk ID]&". "[Title *];"");""))
Cant see any solution on this.
thankful for help
Hi Chandoo,
This is perfect - One quick question, How can I add a hyperlink to the risks - So that I can click on the particular risk and it takes me to the actual row of that item.
Many thanks in advance.
HI Chandoo,
Is there a way to only display filtered item. Once the list gets big, it's hard to see all risk.
Kind regards,
SinYen
Hi Chandoo,
Quick question
1) Is there a way to remove duplicates within each risk block?
2) Is there a way to have the results in the chart update based on a filter or slicer?
Thanks a lot
Hi Chandoo,
The risk map is a brilliant tool, and I wanted to the risk map to only show Open risks. How can I do that?
Just found this today as I am making a risk matrix as well. I got the formula to work with this, where a risk score is above 30. Risk score = probability*impact*modifier.
So this works flawlessly, ="- "&TEXTJOIN(CHAR(10)&"- ",TRUE,IF('Risk tracker'!G4:G27>=30,IF(Table1[Urgency]="Now",'Risk tracker'!A4:A27,""),""))
I am trying to find a range now. Risk score in between 21-29. I tried using the AND function, but I couldnt get it to work. Is there anyway to get this formula to work with a range as mentioned above?
Thanks Eric.
You can't use AND() as it is not able to return arrays. You can try below formula.
="- "&TEXTJOIN(CHAR(10)&"- ",TRUE,IF(('Risk tracker'!G4:G27>=21)*('Risk tracker'!G4:G27<=29),IF(Table1[Urgency]="Now",'Risk tracker'!A4:A27,""),""))
Hello, this template is nice, thank you but im facing a problem when I need to find a range of impact. I cant figure out how..
My actual form is "="• "&TEXTJOIN(CHAR(10)&"• ";TRUE;IF(Table1[Impact]=A8;Table1[Title];"");"")"
Where A8 is number "1" so this formula finds everything with impact 1 and shows the titles.
What I need to get is a range so,
A8 is "1" and A9 is "2" and I need the formula to find all titles which impact is between 1 and 2.
I tried the AND function and so on, nothing worked..
Can you help me please?
i tried everything in your video in the end i only get the bullet... please guide me through
Sorted it... i was flash filling the other cells and it took other columns...
i do have another question though... how can i use slicers to filter the content of the matrix, so that it'll show only the departments i select?
slicer is working fine with the table, but the matrix still shows all the results
Just want to thank you for this.
It is awesome.
Hello everyone,
I think I accidentally nested my question in another thread. Apologies!
This is another amazing Excel tutorial, with great content and tips! My question is about slicers. How do you add slicers to this matrix? I've added 2 columns in my workbook table (Work Stream and Project Name) and I want to be able to filter (slice) the matrix on Project Name, but having some trouble with this. The slicer works fine for the data table, but how do I connect it to the risk matrix, so that only risk titles show up for the selected project?
Many thanks in advance for your guidance,
MyvJ
This is another amazing Excel tutorial! My question is about slicers. How do you add slicers to this matrix? Please advise