One of the popular uses of Excel is to maintain a list of events, appointments or other calendar related stuff. While Excel shines easily when you want to log this data, it has no quick way to visualize this information. But we can use little creativity, conditional formatting, few formulas & 3 lines of VBA code to create a slick, interactive calendar in Excel. Today, lets understand how to do this.
But first, a reminder to join my Advanced Excel masterclass in USA
As you may know, I am running my first ever Advanced Excel & Dashboards Masterclass in USA this summer (May / June 2013). We will be doing 2 day interactive sessions on Excel, advanced Excel, interactive charts, pivot tables & dashboards in Chicago, New York, Washington (DC) & Columbus (OH). If you live near any of these cities and want to become awesome in Excel, please consider enrolling in my Masterclass.
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Back to the interactive calendar
Coming back to our topic at hand – interactive calendar, what do we mean by this?
Well, something like below:
How to create an interactive calendar from a set of events
1. Collect all the event data in a table
Just enter event data in a table like below:
2. Set up a calendar in a separate rate
If your events span several months, then you can use formulas to generate calendar.
In my case, all the events (Masterclass sessions) are in May & June 2013. So I just entered date of May 1st in a cell, dragged it sideways and then re-arranged the cells to make it look like a calendar. At this stage, the calendar should look like this:
3. Name the calendar range
This is simple. Select all the cells in calendar range and give a name to it. I called mine “calendar”.
4. Assign a cell for identifying which date is selected
Select a blank cell in your workbook, give it a name like “selectedCell”. We will use this to identify which date is selected by user.
5. Write Worksheet_selectionchange() event
This will help us identify when user selects a cell in “calendar” range. The below 3 line VBA should do. Please attach it to the sheet where your calendar is.
Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
If Not Application.Intersect(Target, Range("calendar")) Is Nothing Then
[selectedCell] = ActiveCell.Value
End If
End Sub
Tutorial: Showing details when user selects a cell
6. Set up the formulas to show details when a valid date is selected
Lets say, each event has 4 details associated with it – title, date, venue & description.
Now, we need to show details of the event when user selects a date in the calendar. Since the selected date is in “selectedCell”, we can use VLOOKUP, IF, IFERROR formulas to do this:
- Fetch event title in a cell if date selected has an event in it. Else keep it blank
-
=IFERROR(VLOOKUP(selectedCell, table_of_events, event_title_column, false),"")
-
- Fetch rest of event details, but keep them blank if date has no events.
Lets say these 4 details are fetched to cells D1, D2, D3 & D4 cells.
7. In calendar sheet, add 4 text boxes and assign them to cells
Finally, in calendar sheet, add 4 text boxes. Assign them to D1, D2, D3 & D4 cells. Arrange and format them as you fancy.
Tip: to assign a cell to text box, just select the text box, go to formula bar and type =D1 press enter.
8. Set up conditional formatting to highlight selected dates
Finally, add a simple conditional formatting rule to highlight the selected dates in calendar. This is simple. Assuming calendar starts at cell A1,
- Select the calendar range
- Go to conditional formatting
- Add new rule
- Select rule type as “Use a formula to determine which cells to highlight”
- type the rule as =A1=selectedCell
- Set up formatting
PS: in my data above, I have used different formula as we need to highlight 2 dates of a Masterclass even when 1 is selected.
Tip: Introduction to conditional formatting.
9. Clean up and formatting
Clean up your worksheets and format the calendar so that it looks gorgeous. And you are done!
Download Interactive Calendar Example file
Click here to download interactive calendar example file and play with it to understand this better.
Examine the formulas in “Calcs” sheet & VBA code so that you can see how this is weaved.
Work with calendar data often, then you are in luck
If you use calendar data often and are looking for some inspiration, ideas & examples on how to represent it, then check out below examples:
- Employee vacation tracker & dashboard
- Creating perpetual calendar & event tracker in Excel
- Interactive pivot table calendar & chart in Excel
- Creating an interactive picture calendar
- Employee shift calendar template
- Annual goals tracker
Do you like the interactive calendar?
I often use interactive calendars in my dashboards & client projects. Since calendars are very natural way to understand events, they work really well.
What about you? Do you use calendars often? How do you like the above technique? Please share your thoughts & ideas using comments.
PS: And if you are waiting to become awesome in Excel, then wait no more. Book your spot in my upcoming Masterclass. Click here.
18 Responses to “Best Charts to Compare Actual Values with Targets – What is your take?”
Great post. I can't vote, though, because the answer I want to put down is "it depends". As with all visualisations, you've got to take into account your audience, your purpose, technical skills, where it will be viewed, etc.
I'm with Andy: It depends. Some I would use, some I might use, some I won't touch with a barge pole.
Naturally I have comments 🙂
The dial gauge, though familiar, is less easy to read than a linear type of chart (thermometer or bullet). It's really no better than the traffic lights, because all it can really tell you is which category the point falls in: red, yellow, or green.
By the same token, pie charts are so familiar, people don't know they can't read them. Remember how long it takes kids to learn to read an analog clock?
Bullet charts don't show trends.
With any of the charts that have a filled component and a marker or ine component, it makes more sense to use the filled component (area/ column) for target, and the lines or markers for actual.
[...] Best Charts to Compare Actual values with Targets (or Budgets … [...]
I voted for #6 even though I agree with the other comments that it depends.
The majority of the votes are for the #2, thermometer chart. I still have yet to understand what happens when you are above plan/goal, which was brought up in yesterday's post.
Also, I agree with Jon in that it would be better to flip the series and make the filled part the target or goal and the line or marker the actual.
I am also a fan of using text when appropriate if the data is among other metrics in a type of dashboard. Calling it out by saying actual and % achievement is a good option.
Another "it depends" vote. Are you just looking at one or are you comparing a number of targets with actuals? You didn't include a text box. The problem with sentences is that they can get lost in a page of gray text. A text box can call attention to the numbers and line them up effectively.
I'm with Jon: "Some I would use, some I might use, some I won’t touch with a barge pole" and I'm surprised that some of your readers voted for the last group.
Jon says:
With any of the charts that have a filled component and a marker or line component, it makes more sense to use the filled component (area/ column) for target, and the lines or markers for actual.
Why does this make more sense? I like 6 the way it is, although I would use a heavy dash for the plan/target marker.
"It depends" is also my take. What I usually try to drill into my clients dashboard design is the fu ndamental difference between spot results (am I on target for this month) and long term trends.. I always try to create 3 different set of graphs to represent real perormance:
- spot results vs objectives
- cumulative results vs objectives
- long-term trend (moving average) mostly) to see where we're going
[...] Best Charts to Compare Actual Values with Targets – What is your take? (tags: excel charts) [...]
[...] Related: Charting Principles, How to compare actual values with budgets [...]
[...] Excel Charting Alternatives to compare values [...]
Jon says:
With any of the charts that have a filled component and a marker or line component, it makes more sense to use the filled component (area/ column) for target, and the lines or markers for actual.
Why does this make more sense? I like 6 the way it is, although I would use a heavy dash for the plan/target marker.
I totally agree, Bob. I would normally favour a line for the target and a column for the actual, you can see quite easily then which columns break through the line, then.
[...] best charts to compare actual values with targets — den Status mal anders zeigen, z. B. als Tacho [...]
Thermometer charts: "Not appropriate when actual values exceed targets" - this is easily solved by making the "mercury" portion a different color from the border, then you can clearly see where the expected range ends and the actual values keep going.
People seem to knock gauges quite a bit in dashboarding, but trying to show comparison of realtime data between operating sites and targets for each site can easily be done with a bank of gauges that have the optimal operating points at 12 o'clock.
The human eye is great at pattern stripping, and any deviation of a gauge from the expected 12 position will quickly register with an operator and attract his attention. Using a colour background, or meter edge, will also indicate the sensitivity of a particular site.
[…] Best charts to compare actual with target values […]
[…] Best charts to compare actual with target values […]
[…] work laptop I have a favorites folder just dedicated to Excel charts. Its got things like “Best Charts to Compare Actuals vs Targets” and “Best charts to show progress“. I love me some charts […]
I am wondering how will the plotting work, for some of the targets which may have been achieved before time. E.g. for the month of Jul the target was 226 and the actual was 219. So the chart will show a deficit in meeting the target by 7 points but what if this 7 may have been completed earlier in month of June. So ideally it not a deficit.