Finally, I got some time to sit down and do what I love most – write a blog post to make you awesome in Excel. After a whirlwind trip to Sydney, I am back in India to spend few days with my kids & wife before rushing to Australia to run 2nd leg of my training programs (in Perth, Melbourne & Brisbane). I did 2 sessions in Sydney – one for KPMG and other for public and both went very well. We got lots of positive feedback and people really loved it. I am saving the details for another post, but today lets talk about Interactive Sales Chart using Excel.
Take a look at the Interactive Sales Chart
First, take a look at interactive sales chart. Today, you will learn how to build this using Excel.

Inspiration for this chart
Before we learn how you can create such a chart, let me tell where the inspiration came from. Yesterday, Persol, a forum member asked, How to make an info-radar chart, where he mentioned the below chart from Good.is

[Click here to play with this chart]
While I took inspiration from the above chart, I replaced the radar chart with a regular column chart (as column charts are easier to read) and modified the data to a sales data set.
How to create interactive sales chart in Excel?
First, take a look at the data
The sales data for this chart looked like this:

I have set up this data in an Excel Table called as tblSales so that it is easier to write formulas.
The formulas
To calculate various values in the chart, we use ample doses of SUMIFS formula.
The Interactivity
When you click on any year, region or product name, we run worksheet_seletionchange event. This tells our calculation engine which year, region & product are chosen. Then the formulas would (re)calculate the data for charts. This updates the charts & conditional formats.
[Related: Show on-demand details in Excel using VBA]
Here is how the interactive chart works:

How to create interactive charts like this – Video
Since the actual mechanics of this are quite elaborate, I made a short video (15 min) explaining how various parts of this chart work. Please watch it below.
[You can watch the video on our Youtube channel too]
Download Interactive Sales Chart Workbook
Click here to download the workbook & play with it. Examine the macros & formulas to learn more.
How do you like this chart?
I really liked Good.is chart and wanted to see how much of it we can do in Excel. It was a fun exercise. I have noticed that such charts excite people (decision makers too) and make your reports fun.
What about you? How do you like the interactive sales chart? What additions / modifications would you do to it? Please share your thoughts using comments.
Create Interactive Charts using Excel
Interactive charts are one my favorite visualizations. They let users play with the chart & decide what they want. So, naturally I write about them every now and then. Please go thru these examples if you want to learn various interactive charting techniques in Excel.
- Show top x values in a chart interactively
- Interactive dashboard using hyperlinks
- Suicides vs. Murders – Interactive Excel Chart
- Create a quick dynamic chart in Excel
- Interactive charts that leave your boss drooling
- More on Interactive Charts
I also recommend enrolling in our Excel + VBA Class if you want to learn these techniques and create stunning reports & charts. Click here to learn more about our Excel + VBA training program.
















24 Responses
I’d suggest simply using the subtotal function and filtering the data using the Win/Loss column. You get the same results and the formula is more comprehensible.
@John
That is one option.
There are times however when you want to see the whole data table or a filtered subset and still want to produce summary reports against an unfiltered field.
Is there a particular reason why you are using a comma and the unary (–) operator for the second array in the SUMPRODUCT formula? It seems to work the same if you were to string the arrays together using the asterisk (*). The advantage is that SUMPRODUCT treats the entire string of arrays as a single array.
@Mathew
Your correct, There is no difference.
I thought it may have been easier to explain this method.
Is there a way to do this on a large set of data? As in ~100,000 rows? When I try I get an error because the formula becomes too long. It says the max length of a formula is 8,192 characters. Excel 2010.
How do I incorporate a specific text within a cell for the second array. For instance, – -(C7:C13=”Apple”)
when I chose a specific text the formula does not work.
@RB
I am not sure what is the issue as if I use the sample data in the post the following work fine
Count:
=SUMPRODUCT(SUBTOTAL(3,OFFSET(C7:C13,ROW(C7:C13)-MIN(ROW(C7:C13)),,1)), –(C7:C13=”L”))
Sum:
=SUMPRODUCT(SUBTOTAL(3,OFFSET(C7:C13,ROW(C7:C13)-MIN(ROW(C7:C13)),,1)),(C7:C13=”L”)*(D7:D13))
You may want to check that there are no leading or trailing spaces in your list of Apples
I should have given a better explanation. Heres my situation. I have a column with cells filled with names like Column 1, Column 2, Pier 1, Pier 2, etc. If the cell just contained Pier and searched for that it works. But because it has other characters in the cell its not recognizing the pier. So how can I extract specific characters of a string of text in this formula?
Hopefully this was a better explanation
Hello-
This formula works pretty well for me except that it slow down excel and prevents some of my macros from working. I was wondering if there was a way to program this in VBA so that excel isn’t always trying to recalculate it. I would like to use a push of a button to get it to run then paste in a cell.
Thanks!
I am trying to sum filtered data in a column, but would want to ignore the negative values in the column. How to go about doing this?
@Akshay
Why not just add a filter to that column to only show the values greater than zero?
The negative values are required for reporting purposes, but their effect on the total is distorting the required output. Please advise.
@Akshay
I’d suggest making a post in the Chandoo.org Forums
http://forum.chandoo.org/
Attach a sample file to simplify the task
I have this working for counting and summing, however, I have a list and for the second array, I need a criteria. That is, I’m looking for b13:b200=”01.??.??” or =left((a1,2) or something like that. These types of criteria matches do not appear to work as I get a blank as a result.
Thanks!
@Bob
As your formula b13:b200=”01.??.??” looks like you are trying to check the first day of the month of the range
What about trying Day(B13:B200)=1
Hai Experts,
i understood this formula well and working fine in MS Excel 2013
but when the same am trying to place in google Spreadsheet it shows error as
“SUMPRODUCT has mismatched range sizes. Expected row count: 1. column count: 1. Actual row count: 2014, column count: 1.” and as a result #VALUE! Appears in cell.
Can anyone please help me how would i get it done in Google Spread sheet
or is there any other formula as a substitute for this.
Thank you very much.
thanks for providing this.. but why does excel keeps on prompting Circular referencing in cell D3?
@Vivek
I don’t know
I just downloaded the file and it is working fine and not showing that error
Goto the Formulas, Calculation Options Tab and check that Calculation is set to Automatic
What version of Excel and Windows are you using ?
I know that this forum is for MS Excel, but I am trying to help someone who is working in Google Sheets. The below formula works in Excel but Google Sheets returns:
“SUMPRODUCT has mismatched range sizes. Expected row count: 1. column count: 1. Actual row count: 39000, column count: 1.” and as a result #VALUE! Appears in cell.
This is the same problem asked by Srichirin above. Does anyone know if there is a formula for Google Sheets that will replicate what MS Excel does?
=SUMPRODUCT(SUBTOTAL(3,OFFSET($C$6:$C$39500,ROW($C$6:$C$39500)-MIN(ROW($C$6:$C$39500)),,1)),- -($C$6:$C$39500=H1),($D$6:$D$39500))
Trying to find a SUMPRODUCT formula that counts the word Closed by date for the last 7 days in a filtered list.
=COUNTIF(M:M,”>”&TODAY()-7) works ok for unfiltered count Column M contains Closure dates (blank if open) and Column L is Status Open or Closed
@ Terry
Please ask the question at the Chandoo.org Forums
https://chandoo.org/forum/
Please attach a sample file to ensure a quicker more accurate answer
I used this formula and worked like a charm! But, now I’ve been requested to use it but adding not one but two criteria in the same formula. For instance the sum I was doing added negative and positive numbers. I’ve been asked to use the exact same formula but adding that only positive numbers were considered… any idea on how to do this?
How exactly do you do sum filtered cells when two criteria are need not just one?
Thank you so much brother literally I have been struggling since morning to get the sum of the filtered category, however, after reading your blog attentively i got my solution, so thanks a lot once again.