Lets say you are the head of purchasing department at Big Corp Co.
You are obviously very busy. Every day starting with a large cup of coffee and ends with a big smile, as you save your company thousands of $s by negotiating best deals, finding best providers and being awesome.
Today, let me share a small Excel tip with you that will make you even more awesome.
Finding a provider with lowest value:
Lets say you are looking at a table like below and want to find-out lowest priced providers for each service.
To find providers with lowest value:
- Find the least amount for each service. Assuming the services are in the range C5:G5, use =MIN(C5:G5) to get this.
- Give a name to list of providers. I call mine as providers
- Using INDEX, MATCH formulas find the provider name with lowest amount. Like this:
=INDEX(providers, MATCH(minimum_value, C5:G5, 0)) - Bingo. You have the answer.
Bonus tip #1: Highlighting lowest values.
If you just want to highlight the lowest values, use conditional formatting.
- Select first row of numbers.
- Go to Home > Conditional Formatting > Top / Bottom rules > Bottom 10 items
- Set to Bottom 1 and specify formatting as you want.
- Using format painter, copy the conditional formatting, one row at a time.
- Done!
Bonus tip #2: Handling Ties
Often 2 or more providers will tie for the bottom spot. What then?
One way to handle the ties is to show the word ties when 2 or more names have lowest value. To do this, use this formula instead.
=IF(COUNTIF(C5:G5, minimum_value)>1,"Ties", INDEX(providers,MATCH(minimum_value,C5:G5,0)))
A formula challenge for you…
Now that you know how to find the lowest value, here is a challenge for you.
- How do you write a formula to find which provider has maximum lowest values. In this example, the name we are looking for is TATA as they have 3 lowest values.
Want to find more… look here:
If you want to find more Excel formula tips and techniques, look no further. Start your journey with this and see how deep your formulas can nest.
14 Responses to “Group Smaller Slices in Pie Charts to Improve Readability”
I think the virtue of pie charts is precisely that they are difficult to decode. In many contexts, you have to release information but you don't want the relationship between values to jump at your reader. That's when pie charts are most useful.
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Chandoo,
millions of ants cannot be mistaken.....There should be a reason why everybody continues using Pie charts, despite what gurus like you or Jon and others say.
one reason could be because we are just used to, so that's what we need to change, the "comfort zone"...
i absolutely agree, since I've been "converted", I just find out that bar charts are clearer, and nicer to the view...
Regards,
Martin
[...] says we can Group Smaller Slices in Pie Charts to Improve Readability. Such a pie has too many labels to fit into a tight space, so you need ro move the labels around [...]
Chandoo -
You ask "Can I use an alternative to pie chart?"
I answer in You Say “Pie”, I Say “Bar”.
This visualization was created because it was easy to print before computers. In this day and age, it should not exist.
I think the 100% Bar Chart is just as useless/unreadable as Pies - we should rename them something like Mama's Strudel Charts - how big a slice would you like, Dear?
My money's with Jon on this topic.
The primary function of any pie chart with more than 2 or 3 data points is to obfuscate. But maybe that is the main purpose, as @Jerome suggests...
@Jerome.. Good point. Also sometimes, there is just no relationship at all.
@Martin... Organized religion is finding it tough to get converts even after 2000+ years of struggle. Jon, Stephen, countless others (and me) are a small army, it would take atleast 5000 more years before pie charts vanish... patience and good to have you here 🙂
@Jon .. very well done sir, very well done.
good points every one...
I've got to throw my vote into Jon's camp (which is also Stephen Few's camp) -- bars just tend to work better. One observation about when we say "what people are used to." There are two distinct groups here (depending on the situation, a person can fall in either one): the person who *creates* the chart and the person who *consumes* the chart. Granted, the consumers are "used to" pie charts. But, it's not like a bar chart is something they would struggle to understand or that would require explanation (like sparklines and bullet graphs). Chart consumers are "used to" consuming whatever is put in front of them. Chart creators, on the other hand, may be "used to" creating pie charts, but that isn't an excuse for them to continue to do so -- many people are used to driving without a seatbelt, leaving lights on in their house needlessly, and forwarding not-all-that-funny anecdotes via email. That doesn't mean the practice shouldn't be discouraged!
[...] example that Chandoo used recently is counting uses of words. Clearly, there are other meanings of “bar” (take bar mitzvah or bar none, for [...]
[…] Grouping smaller slices in pie chart […]
Good article. Is it possible to do that with line charts?
Hi,
Is this available in excel 2013?