HR managers & department heads always ask, “So what is the vacation pattern of our employees? What is our average absent rate?”
Today lets tackle that question and learn how to create a dashboard to monitor employee vacations.
What do HR Managers need? (end user needs)
There are 2 aspects tracking vacations.
- Data entry for vacations taken by employees
- Status dashboard to summarize vacation data
Based on my interaction with few HR managers, the below questions are asked most often when it comes to vacation tracking:
- What is the absent rate of our employees (in any year or latest 3 month period)
- What are the vacation patterns for individual employees (or teams)
- On which dates most employees are absent?
- Who is taking most (or least) vacation days?
A look at the completed Vacation Dashboard
Take a look at the completed dashboard (click to enlarge).
Constructing Employee Vacation Dashboard
The construction process can be broken in to 3 steps:
- Vacation tracker for entering dates & types of vacations.
- Calculation engine
- Dashboard design & formatting
Step 1: Creating a tracker for vacations
The best way to create a tracker is to use Excel tables. Set up one with 4 columns – Employee name, vacation type, start date & end date, like below:
By using tables, we can continue to add more vacation data (or remove older data) and all our formulas continue to work seamlessly.
Additional tables required…
Apart from the main vacations table, we need below tables:
- Employees table – to keep the names of employees
- Vacation types table – to keep the type of vacations
- Holidays table – with official holiday dates
Step 2: Calculation engine
There are 3 portions in our dashboard and each of them requires certain calculations.
- Date logic
- Employee view
- Calendar view
For all the views, the main driver is latest date, which is the maximum value of end date column in vacations table (=MAX(Vacations[End Date]))
Tip: Use Max to find latest date
Although the calculations are not very complex, explaining each of them can be very tedious. So let me summarize them with a diagram.
Important formulas used in the calculations:
The key formulas & ideas used are,
- Range lookup formula
- SUMIFS formula
- Calendar formulas
- EDATE, EOMONTH, WEEKDAY, NETWORKDAYS Formulas
- The lovely INDEX formula
Step 3: Dashboard design & formatting
This dashboard is an excellent example of synthesis – combination of multiple Excel features to create something very simple and easy to use.
Excel features & ideas used:
There are many Excel features & ideas used in this dashboard. First take a look at the illustration below.
- Combo box form control to select an employee to highlight their vacations
- Conditional formatting & cell grid to show vacations in a gantt chart like view.
- Highlighting selected employee’s vacations again using conditional formatting.
- Calendar view created by picture links
- Heat map of number of people away on each date using conditional formatting (similar example).
- Header section with references to calculations & cell formatting.
- Hyperlink on a rounded rectangle shape to link to tracker sheet.
Formatting the dashboard:
The basic layout of dashboard is just 3 boxes – a big summary box on top, a large employee view box (70%) and a small calendar view box (30%).
The fonts are Calibri & Cambria default fonts in Excel 2007 or above.
I used variations of Tan color in most areas of dashboard (headers, box backgrounds, buttons etc.) and shades of pink, blue, green & gray for marking the vacations. Orange is used to highlight selected employee’s vacations.
Although there is a lot of data, I designed this dashboard with minimal clutter. It is very easy to use (there is only one input control).
Download Employee Vacation Dashboard
Click here to download the employee vacation tracker & dashboard workbook. Play with it to learn more.
How do you like this dashboard?
I have thoroughly enjoyed the process of building this dashboard. I especially loved how picture links, conditional formatting heat maps (color scales) & simple calendar logic all have blended in to create a stunning calendar view.
What about you? Do you like this dashboard? How would you have designed it? Go ahead and share your feedback, ideas & suggestions for improvements in comments. I am eager to learn from you.
Want to learn more about this dashboard?
If you want to learn how this dashboard is constructed in a detailed fashion (along with 6 other dashboards & ton of material on dashboard design process) then please consider joining in our Excel School Dashboards program. Just today, I have uploaded a lesson (35 mins) on Employee Vacation dashboard to our Excel School website. You can use it and 32 hours more of video instruction to become awesome in Excel.
28 Responses to “2010 Calendar – Excel Template [Downloads]”
[...] Download and print the calendars today. You can add notes to individual dates or complete … [...] Uni Ego / Free 2010 Calendar – Download and Print Year 2010 Calendar today [...]
Any chance on a 2016 calendar?
Afternoon,
I have one similar calander that I added conditional formatting to so that I could highlight any planned factory holidays. I think i "borrowed" the formula from another calander so I won't post it here.
I also added week numbers to it using the formula =WEEKNUM(MAX(C6:I6)) Where C6:I6 is the range of dates in that give week. It works fine on most of the months but return strange values on other months (Week 6 in October?) I can't see any logic behind why it does this.
Any suggestions for an alternative formula to give the week numbers?
Regards,
William
Hi Chandoo,
I've added a new feature on your spreadsheet.
This control can be useful for all the sheets where you need to check dates.
Cheers
http://cid-69a78592a23a8438.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/2010-calendar%5E_Miguel.xls
Hi Chandoo,
Nice calendar.
Till now whichever calendar I saw in Excel, it contained only the outline sheet.
Good to see monthly views and the mini view too.
Liked the mini view much. 🙂
-Nimesh
@William: This weeknum may be because the input dates to max are not properly formatting as excel dates.
Good tip on the conditional formatting and holidays btw...
@Migueal: Now that is super awesome. This is the reason why I love to blog. Readers will always one up me with such cool alternatives. Thank you for sharing this with us.
@Nimesh: You are welcome 🙂
is it possible to get the Notes section on the outline page to display the notes added to the month page for a specific date?
So if you add thing for January 2nd, and then select January 2nd those notes appear on the outline page
@Shish... You can do that using some formula magic. I would not recommend pushing excel to that as outlook / google calendar / icalc etc. do exactly that much more elegantly.
[...] Perpetual Excel Calendar – Free Downloadable Template [...]
Happy christmas to all of you!
This is really awesome. The nicest calender I've seen for Excel. I also like Miguels version of the sheet.
Just one "feature" is missing to me. As I live in Germany - where weeks start on Monday - I'd like to change this. Could someone please give me a hint how to do this?
Thanks in advance
Jörg
Hi Chandoo, I’ve added some new features on your spreadsheet with your permission.
Check it here:
http://cid-6b219f16da7128e3.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/Calendar%5E_Pedro.xlsm
Miguel, this calendar is translated to Spanish language.
Jörg, this new approach allows us to start weeks on Monday.
Also it's possible to start weeks on Sunday if you enable Excel macros and push the arrows.
Best Regards,
Pedro.
@Pedro.. superb stuff.. thanks for sharing the file with all of us.
Hi Chandoo, for dates before March 1, 1900 our calendars are wrong.
In Microsoft Excel, DATE, EOMONTH, WEEKDAY functions return an incorrect result between Monday, January 1, 1900 and Wednesday, February 28, 1900.
See this page: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/214326/en-us/
Microsoft Excel incorrectly assumes that the year 1900 is a leap year in all Excel versions.
That's the reason why our calendar versions only work from March, 1, 1900 until December, 31, 9999.
Your comments are welcome.
Pedro.
@Pedro.. Thanks for pointing that out. wow... This reminds me of the Joel Spolsky's first BillG review - http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html (read it, I am sure you would love it.) when Bill out of blue asks about date time implementations for VBA (which Joel is the program manager for...)
Thanks for sharing the URL too... Here is a specially made, chocolate sprinkled, extra fluffy donut for you 🙂
Hi Chandoo, thanks a lot for the donut but I prefer it without chocolate!
Always it's good to know a little history of Excel.
The Joel Spolsky’s last BillG Excel review was about the "Hall of Tortured Souls"
(See this Excel 95 Easter Egg here: http://www.eeggs.com/items/719.html)
Do not miss the humor!
@Chandoo.. I just return with a new calendar version.
http://cid-6b219f16da7128e3.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/calendar-pedrowave.xltx
It helped me to practice conditional formatting, formulas to show check boxes, data validation drop down list, find out Thanksgiving Day's date for any year, how to find dates of public holidays using Excel, all reading your wonderful posts!
Perpetual Calendar Spanish version starting weeks on Monday:
http://cid-6b219f16da7128e3.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/calendario-pedrowave.xltx
Main characteristics:
- Not macros.
- Select a year from 1900 to 9999 with a dropdown listbox.
- All date fields with the real date format.
- Easy language change of day of the week and month names because are also dates.
- Hide Saturdays and/or Sundays.
- Week starting on Sunday or Monday.
- Week and month numbers.
- Hyperlink between sheets.
- Consistent colors to Holidays, Diary and Events dates.
- Easy change of Holidays by country.
- Include 80 World Days and you can add more.
- A diary with my birthday and 50 more programable appointments.
- Check box to hide individual dates or all.
- Holidays, diary and events text are showed on each month's sheet.
- Ranges defined with Name Manager variables.
I'll appreciate if you make me some suggestions to improve this calendar.
Pedro.
Please, I need help!
I like all calendar from Pedro, thank you for them. Let me show my problem:
I have 2 excel cells (for example AE12 and AE13) which mean the starting and the ending date of my duty. I need a macro to insert sheets with label YEAR. MONTH (for example 2010. August or similar) with the proper datas between the two dates. Is it possible?
Thank you for reading me and sorry about my terribel english! 🙂
Hello Pedro,
Thanks so much for the modified calendar template. I love the extra functionality you added. Is there any way you could upload an unlocked version? I wanted to change some of the comments and data validation so I could use it for one of my applications.
As for feedback on potential improvements, with all the additions you made the file runs pretty slow. I'm sure this has to do with all the interconnectivity between the various tabs, but if there is a way to use less memory via more efficient formulas or something else I think this would make it easier to use. I have a brand new computer and with it running alone the response was pretty slow. One of the changes I'm making is changing the order of the months to match my company's fiscal year, so maybe something to automate a change like that could be useful.
Cheers,
Peter
Peter, my calendars are unlocked but you need Excel 2007 and 2010 versions to open them.
Now I return with a new Programmable Task Calendar:
http://cid-6b219f16da7128e3.office.live.com/view.aspx/.Public/Calendario%20de%20Tareas.xlsx
Wath an introductory video here:
http://pedrowave.blogspot.com/2010/10/programmable-task-calendar.html
This new calendar allows to select the start month to match the school and fiscal year.
This is great stuff Chandoo and company
Wanted to know if someone had built something similar
I need to store one Excel Sheet on this calendar that has all the holidays
US Holidays appear in RED
UK Holidays appear in Blue
Meetings appear in Green
Submissions appear in Orange
Is there a way I can store the list in a separate worksheet and all the calendars get updated with this?
Thanks
[...] Calendars: Year 2010 Excel Calendar | Year 2009 Excel [...]
please tell me "how to convert Rs.10000/- in to words through excel formula
[...] is all! http://chandoo.org/wp/2009/12/11/2010-calendar-excel-template-downloads/ See more Templates at http://www.vertex42.com/ Share this:Like this:LikeBe the first to like this [...]
Greetings,
Thanks for this wonderful excel vacation tracker. I notice that the tracker only has three months November, December and January 2015, however, I would like to add the other ten months for 2014. Can you please instruct me on how I can add the other months?
Thanking you in advance.
Hi Chandoo,
Calendar: can this be printed as single sheet 8.5x11 inch per month
kanu
@Kanu
Yes,
You can resize it to fit
WOW! I just searching some of like this, that help me.
Thank you for sharing.