This post is part of Excel Dashboard Week
As part of Dashboard Week, in this post, we will take a look at Health-care Dashboard prepared and shared by Alberto.
Health-care Dashboard Snapshot:

[Click here to view large version]
How is this Dashboard Made? – An Overview:
Alberto put together an excellent dashboard to visualize hospital performance and understand what is going on.
Here is what I like about the dashboard:
- Clear title and ability to select which half-year you want to analyze.
- Subtle colors for non-data elements of the dashboard
- Alerts to highlight focus areas
- Clear and simple to read dashboard. Once you understand how to read the first line, you know how to read the rest.
- Sparklines, Conditional Formatting.
What can be improved in this dashboard?
- Formulas: Alberto used IF formulas to fetch the values for each half-year (semestre). Instead using INDEX or OFFSET would make his job simpler.
- Hardcoded targets: The target values for each metric are hard-coded. Instead, they should be put in a separate table, just like actual data.
- Solid Fill bars: Instead of using gradient fill data bars, it is better to use solid fill bars thru in-cell charts.
How is the dashboard constructed? – An overview Video:
I have made a short video to explain this dashboard to you. Watch it to understand how this dashboard is made and how you can use similar techniques.
Download the Health-care Dashboard Workbook
Click here to download the excel workbook for the Health-care Dashboard.
Thank you Alberto
I am really thankful to Alberto for taking time to share this file with us so we all can learn from his work.
If you enjoy this Dashboard, say thanks to Alberto.
Contribute to Excel Dashboard Week:
Share dashboard tips, snapshots, excel workbooks or links by filling out this simple online form. Go ahead and share what you got so that we all can learn from each other and become awesome.
Learn How to Make Excel Dashboards:
If you wish to learn how to make Excel Dashboards, join my Excel School online training program. We have 4 completed dashboard tutorials that teach you how to make a KPI dashboard, a Sales dashboard, a Business dashboard and a Website dashboard, all using MS Excel.
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21 Responses to “Distinct count in Excel pivot tables”
The distinct count option works well but I have found that if I have a date field and want to group by year, month, etc. that option seems to be disabled. I need to do both, distinct count and group by year/month.
Example data; sales orders with item quantities with dates.
Challenge; sum the item quantities, count the distinct orders and group by month. How do I do this?
Perhaps that's not possible due to the grouping?
@Al... When you use data model based pivots, you cannot group values manually anymore. Why not use Excel 2016's default date grouping option? In this case we have just a few dates, so Excel is not grouping them, but if you have an year's worth of data, when you make the pivot with date in the row label area, Excel automatically groups them. If you have fewer dates or want to use your own grouping, just create a table with all dates, add columns with month, week, year etc. Then connect this table (these types of tables are usually called as calendar tables) to your data on date field as a relationship. Now you can create reports by month, quarter etc easily.
Is this the only way to do it in 2013? I find it rather cumbersome to have to create another data table listing dates with the another column for MONTH() and YEAR() to be able to summarise data for senior level...
I know people find adding calendar tables cumbersome, but it is a best practice and let's you add more layers of analysis quite easily. For example, adding analysis by weekday vs. weekend or by financial quarter or YTD calculations (you would need either Power Pivot DAX or some very carefully setup pivot table value field settings)
I had absolutely no idea this was possible. Very useful, nice work!
Doesn't work for 2010 version though (or at least not my works version)
Hi ,
The post has the following in it :
These instructions work only in Excel 2016, Office 365 and Excel 2013.
when i have 2 different Pivot tables, one without the enabled “Add this data to data model” option, and the other one with it enabled.. is there anyway i can link slicers between them?
if the answer is NO,, what to do ?
Quick note, the “Add this data to data model” option is not available for the Mac version.
perhaps outside scope of this article but I have found when I attempt to create a pivot table from an external data source (connection to a sql view) the "Add this data to data model" becomes greyed out. Anybody experienced and found a solution so I can start getting distinct count in my pivot tables?
Is there a way to still add a calculated field when using distinct count?
I found I can't change the date source after tick the " add this data to the data model", can you help to adv how to change the date source in such case?
Is there a way to update the source once you have added to the data model? I receive a new spreadsheet weekly and would like to update the connection so my tables pull from the new source.
Hi Crhis, I like how you have hulk (superhero) as your avatar. Do you know that there is a superhero in Excel too? It's Power Query. You can use it to solve your problem in a simple click. Here an intro if you need some guidance.
Powerful Introduction to Power Query
A big Thank you. It worked.
Hi, have survey data that I need to analyze but the challenge is that my key fields are showing horizontally. I tried to transpose the fields using Power Query, but unfortunately the new fields are returning same values on a pivot table despite using distinct values
How I can a do a pivot table with discount conts in some columns and then generate shor report filter pages. pls it drives crazy
Hi. Why grand total pivot of distinct count is 13? shouldn't it be 67?
Great Answer! Saved me lots of time!
Thank you!!!
Worked awesome! Thanks!!
Hi Chandoo,
I am using pivot tables for distinct count and now I need to update them with new set of data. But when I update the source data, all the columns and formatting of Pivot table disappears and I need to build it from Scratch.
Is there a possibility that I can update the source data with new rows added and also retain my pivot tables?