How to create an Interactive Chart in Excel? [Tutorial]

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Imagine you have a worksheet with lots of charts. And you want to make it look awesome & clean.

Solution?

Simple, create an interactive chart so that your users can pick one of many charts and see them.

Today let us understand how to create an interactive chart using Excel.

PS: This is a revised version of almost 5 year old article – Select & show one chart from many.

A demo of our interactive Excel chart

First, take a look at the chart that you will be creating.

How to create interactive chart using Excel - Demo

Feeling excited? read on to learn how to create this.

Solution – Creating Interactive chart in Excel

  1. First create all the charts you want and place them in separate locations in your worksheet. Lets say your charts look like this.
    Create charts in separate ranges like this...
  2. Now, select all the cells corresponding to first chart, press ALT MMD (Formula ribbon > Define name). Give a name like Chart1.
    Select all cells corresponding to first chart and give them a name like Chart1
  3. Repeat this process for all charts you have, naming them like Chart2, Chart3
  4. In a separate range of cells, list down all chart names. Give this range a name like lstChartTypes.
  5. Add a new sheet to your workbook. Call it “Output”.
  6. In the output sheet, insert a combo-box form control (from Developer Ribbon > Insert > Form Controls)
    Insert combo-box form controls - Excel
  7. Select the combo box control and press Ctrl+1 (format control).
  8. Specify input range as lstChartTypes and cell link as a blank cell in your output sheet (or data sheet).
    [Related: Detailed tutorial on Excel Combo box & other form controls]

    Combo box form control settings - Excel interactive chart tutorial

  9. Now, when you make a selection in the combo box, you will know which option is selected in the linked cell.
    Demo of combo box & cell linkage - Excel interactive chart tutorial
  10. Now, we need a mechanism to pull corresponding chart based on user selection. Enter a named range – selChart.
  11. Press ALT MMD or go to Formula ribbon > Define name.  Give the name as selChart and define it as
    =CHOOSE(linked_cell, Chart1, Chart2, Chart3, Chart4)
    PS: CHOOSE formula will select one of the Chart ranges based on user’s selection (help).
  12. Now, go back to data & charts sheet. Select Chart1 range. Press CTRL+C to copy it.
  13. Go to Output sheet and paste it as linked picture (Right click > Paste Special > Linked Picture)
    Pasting a picture link - Excel interactive chart tutorial
  14. This will insert a linked picture of Chart 1.
    [Related: What is a picture link and how to use it?]
  15. Now, click on the picture, go to formula bar, type =selChart and press enter
  16. Move the image around, position it nicely next to the combo box.
  17. Congratulations! Your interactive chart is ready 🙂

Video tutorial explaining this chart

Watch below tutorial to understand how to make this chart.

(or watch it on our Youtube channel)

Download Interactive Chart Excel file

Click here to download interactive chart Excel file and play with it. Observe the named ranges (selChart) and set up charts to learn more.

More Examples of Dynamic & Interactive Charts

If you want to learn more about these techniques, go thru below examples.

Do you use interactive charts?

Dynamic & interactive charts are one of my favorite Excel tricks. I use them in almost all of my dashboards, Excel models and my clients are always wowed by them.

What about you? Do you use interactive charts often? What are your favorite techniques for creating them? Please share your tips & ideas using comments.

Want to learn more? Consider joining my upcoming Dashboards & Advanced Excel Masterclass

I’m very excited to announce my upcoming Advanced Dashboards in Excel Masterclass in USA.

Chandoo.org & PowerPivotPro.com will be hosting this two day, intensive hands-on Masterclass. Enhance your Excel skills to create interactive, dynamic and polished looking dashboards your boss will love. Don’t miss out, this is a one-time opportunity to attend my live workshop in Chicago, New York, Washington DC & Columbus OH in May and June 2013. Places are strictly limited.

Click here to know more & book your spot in my Masterclass

Above article is a preview of the tips and tricks you will be learning in the Masterclass.

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25 Responses to “Shift Calendar Template – FREE Download”

  1. Alvin says:

    Hi Chandoo,

    your recent postings include only Excel 2007 templates. Unfortunately the company I work at still runs Excel 2003. Is it possible to get your awesome files in other excel version as well?

    Thanks so much for your great excel stuff!

  2. Stelios Tserkezis says:

    Is it possible to do this for shifts with hours instead of days? To organise a three shift day?

    Thanks in advance,

    Stelios

  3. MASTHAN says:

    In my organization there are 45 employees i need split then into three shifts ex:A shift:14,B shift:14,C shift:14 and week off:3 kindly help me on this.

  4. Hui... says:

    @Masthan

    You need to understand what rules your company has for the various shifts / roster combinations

  5. Georges Lacombe says:

    Chandoo, I once did a shift control spreadsheet for my team. I put one person in each line, the columns were the days. I put a shift code in each cell indicating in which shift that person should work, or if the person were out that day. I have two codes for being out. One is for vacations and one is to compensate days worked in weekends. This way I was able to count how many persons I have in each shift, how many were on vacations and how many were out compensating (that's the term we use here) weekend worked hours.
    Later I included the possibility of a person be in two lines one for normal hours other for overtime. This is mainly used for planning purposes. If you would like I can send you an example. The only problem of this spreadsheet is that we don't have a person view, only this consolidated view.

    • Chuck Vaughan says:

      Hi George, I would like to have a copy of your spreadsheet if you can share it.
       
      Thanks in advance, Chuck   

  6. Idan says:

    Hi Chandoo,

    Where is the code located ? is it VBA ? If so , how do you hide it ? Or it is .NET ?

    Thx

  7. Hui... says:

    @Idan
    .
    No VBA or code, it is all done with Mirrors.
    Only Joking,
    .
    But there is no VBA or code,
    It is all done with Named Formulas and Lookups.
    Have alook at the cells in the calander area and Named Formulas in the Formulas, Name Manager Tab.

  8. Anand Sant says:

    How can i calculate between two or more different workbooks? Please, reply me as early as possible.

    • Hui... says:

      @Anand
      Open the workbooks you want to link to
      Start a formula = and click and change between workbooks as required.
      You can use the View, Switch window menu to change workbooks mid formula

      The format for using workbooks is
      =[Workbook.xlsm]Sheet1!$A$1
      or
      =SUM('[Book2.xls]Sheet1'!$A$1:$D$10)
      etc

  9. Shemi says:

    Hi Chandoo,
    I am working with a call centre wherein i ned to update at the month end 20 to 30 employees login hours which are defict to track it at the month end is very difficult is there any template which can be made to track that why on a particular day a guy who needs to be on calls was why not on calls.

  10. Denice Lognshaw says:

    Thank you so much Chandoo. This is really helping me. As usual, you rock.

  11. Mukesh Verma says:

    What's FortyTwoDays and Calendar in Name manager?

    Both are unused and FortyTwoDays doesn't make any sense.

  12. Dave says:

    I have a SQL db that contains records of events scheduled/completed on a particular date. Can this method ous building a calendar be used to display those events on the respective day?

  13. Jan Halliday says:

    Positively awesome!
    I'm attempting to help a friend create a schedule for adult classes - and of course its not"paid help".  Here is the scenario:
    20 classes, instructor, room#, student class size, start date, number of class days (need to subtract weekends)

    class
    instructor
    room
    students
    start
    #days

    PATH
    karen
    201
    21
    01/01/13
    11

    BILLING
    jane
    401
    15
    01/12/13
    13

    MEDISOFT
    mike
    301
    11
    01/25/13
    9

    he'd like to see these classes show up in different colors within the same month's calendar chart.  He can draw it, but I'd like to see it done automatically through data, and I just can't visualize it, but I KNOW this will work - can you help?
    Jan 🙂
     

  14. Chan Tean says:

    Dear chandoo,

    Try many way to download still can't access. Any way we want to try out 3 shifts with 3 guys in a group .eg Group A Morn, Group B Night and Group C Rest. And every each group must work on sunday to take turns. In fact we are security teams so that's why sunday is required to work. Pls guide and show how to put in the working calendar. Thank you in advance.

  15. Veronica Burggren says:

    I've been trying to copy and/or recreate this to use in a workbook I'm doing for the transportation department I'm working for. I need to have the calendar on the first sheet in my document (it has graph's from data on another sheet). I'm trying to use it to track (with the conditional formatting) accidents and injuries. I've redone the conditional formatting to do 4 different accident types (no injury, near miss, OSHA recordable injury and work loss injury), but when I enter the formula's you have in the calendar portion where it says "DateOfFirst-FirstWeekDay" I can't figure out how you did that. Are you able to help?

  16. Pipin Fantom says:

    I would like to use Excel to solve the following problem for a community work. I want to create a Driver schedule for a given month from a pool of volunteers for a community service. Each of these volunteers can drive only on specific days in a week. I would like to populate the driving schedule for each weekday with primary, secondary and tertiary drivers in a random fashion so that I do not overburden one person. I would greatly any help you can provide.

  17. Ravichandra says:

    Hi chandoo,
    Thanks for your valuable effort for create this template and let me know how to add multiple employees in the the Roaster.

  18. Savitha says:

    Hi Chandoo,

    This article on shift roaster is very helpful. Could you please let me know how i can use the same for n number of resources who work 24/7, considering their leaves and holidays?

    Thanks,
    Savitha

  19. Balu says:

    Hi Chandoo,

    This article on shift roaster is very helpful to all. Could you please let me know how i can use the same if I want to add for some more shifts, since the color is not getting change if I add more shifts like 4,5 etc.,

    Thanks,
    Murali

  20. Sarah says:

    How can I change the date to 2017 under Shift Data worksheet.

  21. Cad says:

    solution 1:
    mydata=B2:C16
    stoplist=E2:E8

    =LET(RNG,A2:A16,SMR,C2:C16, F,(RNG=E2)+(RNG=E3)+(RNG=E4)+(RNG=E5)+(RNG=E6)+(RNG=E7)+(RNG=E8),SUM(SMR)-SUM(SMR*F))

    =LET(RNG,A2:A16,SMR,C2:C16,RH,N(B2:B16=B2), F,(RNG=E2)+(RNG=E3)+(RNG=E4)+(RNG=E5)+(RNG=E6)+(RNG=E7)+(RNG=E8),TOT,SUM(SMR)-SUM(SMR*RH*F),SUM(SMR*RH)-SUM(SMR* RH*F))

    ALTERNATE SOLUTION
    =SUM(C2:C16)-SUM(FILTER(C2:C16,ISNUMBER(BYROW(A2:A16,LAMBDA(a,TOROW(SEARCH(a,E2:E8),2))))))

    =SUM((B2:B16=B2)*(C2:C16))-SUM((ISNUMBER(BYROW(A2:A16,LAMBDA(a,TOROW(SEARCH(a,E2:E8),2))))*(B2:B16=B2)*(C2:C16)))

  22. Cad says:

    let
    Source = Excel.CurrentWorkbook(){[Name="Table1"]}[Content],
    #"Replaced Value" = Table.ReplaceValue(Source,null,";",Replacer.ReplaceValue,{"Column1"}),
    #"Transposed Table" = Table.Transpose(#"Replaced Value"),
    #"Removed Other Columns" = Table.SelectColumns(#"Transposed Table",{"Column1", "Column2", "Column3", "Column4", "Column5", "Column6", "Column7", "Column8", "Column9", "Column10", "Column11", "Column12", "Column13", "Column14", "Column15", "Column16", "Column17", "Column18", "Column19", "Column20", "Column21", "Column22", "Column23", "Column24", "Column25", "Column26", "Column27", "Column28", "Column29", "Column30", "Column31", "Column32", "Column33", "Column34", "Column35", "Column36", "Column37", "Column38", "Column39", "Column40", "Column41", "Column42", "Column43", "Column44", "Column45", "Column46", "Column47", "Column48", "Column49", "Column50", "Column51", "Column52", "Column53", "Column54", "Column55", "Column56", "Column57", "Column58", "Column59", "Column60", "Column61", "Column62", "Column63", "Column64", "Column65", "Column66", "Column67", "Column68", "Column69", "Column70", "Column71", "Column72", "Column73", "Column74", "Column75", "Column76", "Column77", "Column78", "Column79", "Column80", "Column81", "Column82", "Column83", "Column84", "Column85", "Column86", "Column87"}),
    #"Merged Columns" = Table.CombineColumns(#"Removed Other Columns",{"Column1", "Column2", "Column3", "Column4", "Column5", "Column6", "Column7", "Column8", "Column9", "Column10", "Column11", "Column12", "Column13", "Column14", "Column15", "Column16", "Column17", "Column18", "Column19", "Column20", "Column21", "Column22", "Column23", "Column24", "Column25", "Column26", "Column27", "Column28", "Column29", "Column30", "Column31", "Column32", "Column33", "Column34", "Column35", "Column36", "Column37", "Column38", "Column39", "Column40", "Column41", "Column42", "Column43", "Column44", "Column45", "Column46", "Column47", "Column48", "Column49", "Column50", "Column51", "Column52", "Column53", "Column54", "Column55", "Column56", "Column57", "Column58", "Column59", "Column60", "Column61", "Column62", "Column63", "Column64", "Column65", "Column66", "Column67", "Column68", "Column69", "Column70", "Column71", "Column72", "Column73", "Column74", "Column75", "Column76", "Column77", "Column78", "Column79", "Column80", "Column81", "Column82", "Column83", "Column84", "Column85", "Column86", "Column87"},Combiner.CombineTextByDelimiter("|", QuoteStyle.None),"Merged"),
    #"Split Column by Delimiter" = Table.ExpandListColumn(Table.TransformColumns(#"Merged Columns", {{"Merged", Splitter.SplitTextByDelimiter(";", QuoteStyle.Csv), let itemType = (type nullable text) meta [Serialized.Text = true] in type {itemType}}}), "Merged"),
    #"Added Prefix" = Table.TransformColumns(#"Split Column by Delimiter", {{"Merged", each "|" & _, type text}}),
    #"Replaced Value1" = Table.ReplaceValue(#"Added Prefix","||","|",Replacer.ReplaceText,{"Merged"}),
    #"Split Column by Delimiter1" = Table.SplitColumn(#"Replaced Value1", "Merged", Splitter.SplitTextByDelimiter("|", QuoteStyle.Csv), {"Merged.1", "Merged.2", "Merged.3", "Merged.4", "Merged.5", "Merged.6", "Merged.7", "Merged.8"}),
    #"Removed Columns" = Table.RemoveColumns(#"Split Column by Delimiter1",{"Merged.1"}),
    #"Removed Duplicates" = Table.Distinct(#"Removed Columns")
    in
    #"Removed Duplicates"

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