Hello everyone. Stop reading further and go fetch your helmet. Because what lies ahead is mind-blowingly awesome.
About a month and half ago, we held our annual dashboard contest. This time the theme is to visualize state to state migration in USA. You can find the contest data-set & details here.
We received 49 outstanding entries for this. Most of the entries are truly inspiring. They are loaded with powerful analysis, stunning visualizations, amazing display of Excel skill and design finesse. It took me almost 2 weeks to process the results and present them here.
But first, let me apologize
Each of our contest participants spent a lot of time crafting their files. But due to unforeseen personal work, I could not set aside time to process the entries until last week of May. I sincerely apologize for taking this much time to showcase the entries.
What about the winners?
This week our panel of judges will be reviewing these 49 entries. Next week we will share short-listed entries for public voting. Once the voting is complete, we will declare the winner. This process should be completed with-in 2 weeks.
How to read this post?
This is a fairly large post. If you are reading this in email or news-reader, it may not look properly. Click here to read it on chandoo.org.
- Each entry is shown in a box with the contestant’s name on top. Entries are shown in alphabetical order of contestant’s name.
- You can see a snapshot of the entry and more thumbnails below.
- The thumb-nails are click-able. So that you can enlarge and see the details.
- You can download the contest entry workbook, see & play with the files.
- You can read my comments at the bottom. The comments are in 2 sections – what is good, what can be improved.
- Please take my comments on “what can be improved” lightly. I do not mean to offend any of the contestants.
- At the bottom of the box, you can find links to the key techniques used. Click on them to learn more.
Thank you
Thank you very much for all the participants in this contest. I have thoroughly enjoyed exploring your work & learned a lot from them. I am sure you had fun creating these too.
So go ahead and enjoy the entries.
PS: We had to disqualify 2-3 entries due to errors in VBA code or inability to open the file.
Migration Dashboard by Aditya Canay
What is good:
- Good colors
- Easy to understand (built in help sheet as well)
- Interactive. Can ask questions & get answers
- Interesting facts & overall summary on top
What can be improved:
- Summary on top is static. It would be better to depend on year or state selected.
- State selection is clumsy. Could have used Active-x combo box or slicer
- Donut chart is not the best choice.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Aditya Srinivaasan
What is good:
- Simple and easy on eyes
- Form controls with auto complete (Active-x combos)
- Added data on Cost of living, Crime rate & Tax rate. Helps understand what may have caused the migration.
What can be improved:
- Missing overall summary or header.
- Logarithmic scale on population breakup chart. Makes it unclear.
- Not sure which year’s data population distribution chart shows.
- Crime rate indexation assume same weightage for all crimes. Could have used a better measure.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Amit Ajmera
What is good:
- Comprehensive dashboard with lots of detail
- Analysis of individual state, comparison with another state and overall trends
- Interactive. Can ask questions & get answers
- Analysis of any year or average of all 3.
- Shows a map of selected state.
What can be improved:
- Could use subtle and better colors. Also apply consistent colors.
- Alignment is off in few places.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Arnaud Duigou
What is good:
- Clickable map to drill down to a state
- Overall statistics vs. Individual state focus
- Interactive. Can ask questions & get answers
- Interesting facts & overall summary on top
- Built-in help bubbles (that can be toggled)
- Analysis on factors for migration (by using additional data like per-capita income, unemployment rate and weather conditions)
What can be improved:
- Not sure how the tool tips button is supposed to work.
- Alignment is off in few places.
- Switching between state view & overall heatmaps seems clumsy. Also, the state selection combo box on top feels redundant
- Colors & fonts can be improved. Feels like too many of them are used.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Biju Chacko
What is good:
- Simple charts with easy to understand colors
- Interactive charts to see migration trends per year
What can be improved:
- Could use a summary on top and few other metrics
- Bar charts have non-zero axis. Creates false impression
- Alignment can be improved. Lots of empty spaces that can be filled with useful insights.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Celso Garcia
What is good:
- Clickable map to drill down to a state
- Color coded map & bar chart for easy interpretation
- Form controls to select year
What can be improved:
- Could use a header with summary statistics
- Map and bar chart represent the same data. Could have used other metrics in the bar chart to give more insights
Techniques used:
Become Awesome in Excel & VBA – Create dashboards like these…
My comments:
- Learn how to create interactive dashboards & reports using Excel
- Develop your own macros & VBA code
- 50+ hours of video training
- Learn at your own pace
- Click here to know more
Migration Dashboard by Cesarino Rua
What is good:
- Map with details on hover!
- Lots of details for selected state, include flag of the state, important cities etc.
What can be improved:
- Some of the tables feel like orphans. Could use titles (and overall summary or title or both)
- The bar chart on right is just repetition of data in the last of column of table before that. Could have used this space for something else.
- Feels like too much data. Need to zoom down to 80% to see everything. Consider using form controls or something else to make it easy on eyes.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Chris Newman
What is good:
- Clear, dashboard style output with details in big fonts.
- Details of migration combined with political tastes of the state.
- Slicers for selecting year
- Good choice of colors, good alignment and layout.
- Built-in help bubbles
What can be improved:
- Poor choice of conditional formatting databar on top. Could have used regular bar chart with 0 axis.
- Giving a choice of additional measures could have added detail to state view.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Daniel Dion
What is good:
- Clickable map to drill down to a state
- Also, slicers to select a state
- Ability to select year, type of metric (leaving, entering, net gain) to view for the selected state.
What can be improved:
- Too many scrollbars. Especially both slicer & clickable map serve the same purpose. So, could have removed the slicer.
- The listing of states & column chart beneath the map are same data. Again this space could have been used for other insights.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by David Hoppe
What is good:
- Map with vectors indicating the movement
- Multiple statistics and ability to switch them (and years)
- Ability to analyze by absolute or relative population
- Slicers for selecting state (or region or division)
- Simple, clean layout with good colors and beautiful presentation
What can be improved:
- Could have added help or instructions
- Could have removed either region or division slicer (as they feel redundant)
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Dwight Johnson
What is good:
- Simple charts with easy to understand colors
- Data validation to select state
What can be improved:
- Could have moved the output to a blank sheet & cleaned it up
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Fakhri Damdi
What is good:
- No comments
What can be improved:
- Could have reduced the formatting and focused on insights
- Feels incomplete and rushed. Could have focused on answering some analytical questions instead of making charts from raw data
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Gangadhar Yeligaty
What is good:
- Simple dashboard with easy to understand layout and charts
- Interactive charts to see migration trends per year
- Scrolling area to see where people move from selected state
- Built-in help
What can be improved:
- Could have added header section with few statistics
- Could have used better formatting for the charts (labels & axis feels heavy)
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Janet
What is good:
- Dual map with ability to analyze by either leaving or entering state
- Ability to focus on various trends (with sortable table, year selection)
- Slicers for selecting year, state, type of sort
- Good choice of colors, good alignment and layout.
What can be improved:
- Sort order slicers are reversed (clicking on Ascending sorts the table in descending)
- Feels like too much data. Could have used 000s or millions notation for population numbers (and removed MoE numbers or have them toggled)
- Could have added help to understand what arrows meant in the last column.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Jean-MarcVoyer
What is good:
- WOW
- Form controls, selectable cells to define analysis
- Good design and colors
- Excellent analysis (with ability to ask a lot of questions and get answers visually
What can be improved:
- Dark background makes it tricky to read numbers. Could have used white or dull background.
- The dashboard is very comprehensive. It could have benefited from help screen.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Jeff Sawers
What is good:
- A very interesting layout and selection mechanism (with slicers for year, region and state)
- Focus on top 10 states with-in selection and where people moved using databars & heat maps
- Good alignment, colors and design.
What can be improved:
- The heatmap section is somewhat tricky to interpret. May be aggregating data at just region level would have made it easy to read.
- A little more analysis or explanation on what may have caused migration would make this even better.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Joey Cherdarchuk
What is good:
- Beautiful and simple design
- Clickable cells for selecting year and state
- Simple colors and attractive maps
What can be improved:
- The labels on bar chart are hard to read. A better color or placement would have benefited.
- If the selected year’s map is highlighted, it would make interpretation of trends faster.
- A quick summary on what may have caused such migration trends would make this dashboard even better
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Jon Schwabish
What is good:
- Simple chart with interactive controls
- Uses the hypothesis that people in poor states move to neighboring states and tests it with the interactive charts & data.
- Good colors and simple design
What can be improved:
- Could have added overall statistics in header
- Could have displayed relevant facts for the selected region or state.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Jorge L
What is good:
- Simple & clear layout with summary on top and state details at bottom. Good colors too
- Interactive controls to select state and year.
What can be improved:
- Selecting state is tricky with data validation. Could have used a slicer or active-x combo box
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Jude Shyju
What is good:
- Data & charts (map or table) in one view with ability to toggle fields & years
- Ability to drill down to a state and visualize inflow or outflow
What can be improved:
- Picture links create clumsy output. Could have used regular charts, tables and drawing shapes instead.
- Lack of alignment in few places.
- Although ability to turn off fields is welcome, it just results in a column with #N/A. Not useful as no space is gained.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Kevin Steiner
What is good:
- Interesting visualization with very tiny cells making up US map, pivot table report filters used for selection
- Choropleth map with Excel cell grid!
- Ability to see the map & full data (as pivot report)
What can be improved:
- The cell grid map, although innovative, does not look perfect. Could have used regular map with a little bit of VBA to color it.
- Instead of presenting all the data in a table (pivot table), could have used charts. This saves space and helps create a better layout.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by krishnakumar
What is good:
- Detailed analysis on regional migration trends (Midwest, northeast, south & west)
- Ability to drill-down to an individual state by selecting year, region and state’s name
- Interesting facts & details about state shown.
What can be improved:
- Regional migration column chart is tricky to read. Could have used a map or diagram for better effect.
- Too long. Requires 2 scrolls to see the full dashboard. Instead could have shrunk or removed a few charts to create a compact report.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by krishnasamymohan
What is good:
- Simple report on state migration
What can be improved:
- Too simple. Could have used some charts or conditional formatting to highlight interesting points
- Year selection does not seem to work.
- Gauge charts a poor choice for visualizing this type of data. Could have used alternatives
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by krishnateja
What is good:
- Interesting layout and state selection mechanism (clickable map)
- Ability to analyze selected state’s migration flows
What can be improved:
- Instead of 4 charts depicting regional trends, one chart with selected region’s trends could be used. This creates space for more analysis.
- In-consistent colors and alignment
- Could have displayed a title & quick summary on top.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Kyle Tan
What is good:
- Interesting presentation with ability to choose a variety of perspectives (destination vs. origin, year, entire USA vs. single state) and various measures for doing correlation analysis.
- Sortable, scrollable chart of state migration flows (with distance from origin!)
- I love the correlation analysis chart. But selecting right measure to analyze feels tedious. Could have pre-calculated or suggested measures based on state selection.
- Good, compact layout.
What can be improved:
- The exploded, grouped pie chart on top feels clumsy and poorly done. Should have used a simple bar chart for top 15 states alone.
- The VBA code feels buggy and sluggish. Could have checked it for errors and disabled screenupdating.
- Could have displayed a title & quick summary on top.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Mark Weber
What is good:
- Superb colors, layout, chart selection and presentation
- Very easy to use with built-in help, lots of buttons to change / show / hide things you want.
- Analysis by state and state-to-state.
- 2 color themes – dark & light version.
- Subtle but powerful use of conditional formatting.
What can be improved:
- Could have added a top section with overall USA statistics.
- The analysis is limited to population numbers alone. Could have added additional metrics for richer analysis.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Matthew Waechter
What is good:
- Beautiful colors and layout. Feels well balanced and easy on eyes.
- Ability to select state & year to understand migration flows. The selection choice feels slick (clickable cells with arrow indicator)
- Interesting ladder / waterfall chart to explain net gains in population.
What can be improved:
- The dot plots on top feel cryptic. Could have added help or title to explain that they are migration numbers for all 50 states.
- The analysis is limited to population numbers alone. Could have added additional metrics for richer analysis.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Michael Bellot
What is good:
- An elegant dashboard with subtle colors, interesting shapes and clever layout
- The clickable map is a very user-friendly way to explore the information.
- Additional metrics like health, education, wealth, crime, climate etc. help explain migration reasons
What can be improved:
- Could have added data labels to the bar charts (or to the map) to make it better.
- The radar chart, although looks pretty, just repeats the data on the shapes. Could have used it for something else.
- A little more clean-up on dashboard sheet is needed. It shows some calculations and data on the right (which could be hidden)
- It is not sure for what year the map & bar chart data is displayed. An year selection mechanism can also be added.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by NA Horansil
What is good:
- Wow, cell grid used to create a giant map of USA. Then conditional formatting is used to highlight state’s cells based on migration numbers.
- Ability to select state & year to understand migration flows.
- Sortable migration trends chart (although in a separate sheet)
What can be improved:
- While the cell-grid map looks neat, could have used a regular map with VBA for color-coding. This provides better fidelity and forces us to focus on numbers rather than technique.
- The work books has 3 sheets with dashboards / charts. Contest rules specify one chart or dashboard. Could have integrated all to one page.
- Could have displayed a title & quick summary on top.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Nathaniel Mahoney
What is good:
- One more cell grid map, this time at zip code level. Looks interesting although stretched.
- Ability to select state & year to analyze migration trends
- Uses pivot tables & additional data.
What can be improved:
- The map gets stretched and looses clarity due to cell grid approach. Could have used a regular map with VBA.
- The dashboard (?) has no title, no additional numbers and has minimal legend. Could have added a title, quick summary and few more charts.
- How the zip code level migration data is obtained is not clear. Could have added instructions & pointed to sources.
- Requires Data > Refresh once selection is made. Could have automated that with VBA.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Nhut Vo
What is good:
- Simple report on state migration
- Ability to select state, year for analyzing migration flows. Ability to sort the list of states based on inflows or outflows.
What can be improved:
- The chart on the right (state-wise distribution) feels busy. Could have shown only top 10 states as sorting is already available.
- The sorting buttons are confusing. Could have used a selection mechanism (or toggle button).
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Niyaz Shaffi
What is good:
- Clean layout with good colors and clear titles
- Slicers for selecting to & from state, year
- Forecast of migration flows
- Choropleth map based on state migration flows
- Ability to expand a chart (and see more data points, although for a poorly executed chart)
What can be improved:
- The radar plots are a poor choice for depicting top 10 states. Should have used bar / column charts
- The migration inflow vs. area bubble chart is not easy to understand. Should have added instructions.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Permana Zainal
What is good:
- Clear, simple layout with bright colors
- A map with bubbles depicting migration trends.
- Ability to analyze by state, year and migration destination
What can be improved:
- The map / bubble chart is confusing with too many colors. Not sure what the state fill colors represent. The bubble colors are also distracting and useless (as the bubble size is what matters). Could have simplified with either Choropleth map or outline map with bubbles.
- The bar charts beneath donuts do not start at zero. This creates wrong impression of the data.
- Summary of total migrants / population chart needs axis labels and ability to sort.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Prashant Sharma
What is good:
- Roll-over selectable map and ability to select year for analysis
- Simple dashboard with state migration analysis
What can be improved:
- The state-wise migration flows chart needs ability to sort.
- Could have added few more charts or analysis tables. The chart & tables are just a replica of original data.
- Could have added a title & quick summary at overall USA level.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Rajesh Sangati
What is good:
- Map with ability to select state, type of migration and year (from drop downs)
- Answers questions like which states get most net migrations, contribute for 90% of outflows, inflows
- Simple layout and easy to use
What can be improved:
- The map feels hand-drawn. May be a better outline map or shapes would do justice.
- Labels on charts are difficult to read. Should have used 2 letter state code with horizontal orientation.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Richard Dutton
What is good:
- Clear, elegant layout with lots of detail
- Can select a state (from drop-down), year to analyze migration flows.
- Sortable state-to-state migration chart
- Clicking on any state in the map shows further statistics.
What can be improved:
- The state selection drop-down is clumsy to use. Should have used either active-x or slicer or clickable map to make it user-friendly.
- The axis labels on state-to-state migration are hard to read. May be 2 letter codes or scrollable chart would do the trick.
Techniques used:
Form ControlsMaps + VBASortable TablesConditional Formatting
Migration Dashboard by Roberto Mensa
What is good:
- Wow. A very colorful, clear and well designed report
- Slicers for selecting year, type of data and state are well placed and formatted. They look very natural.
- The map / bubble chart / xy plot is a clever piece of work and explains where people are heading or coming from.
- Interesting addition of Wikipedia links for state names, so that we can learn more by clicking.
What can be improved:
- Could have added a title on the top
- An outline map instead of geo-political map would have made the bubble + XY plot pop out more.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Roger Haragushiku
What is good:
- A simple data table along with bubble chart depicting migration data.
- Ability to select a state and year for analysis
What can be improved:
- The map depicts data in the data table. Could have removed one and used the space for something else.
- Could have added a title and quick summary on top.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by S Ramesh
What is good:
- Interesting report. Start with a help screen and can speak the numbers upon selecting a state.
- A map where you can select a state for further analysis.
What can be improved:
- The map with radio buttons feels somewhat busy. Could have used a simpler outline map with clickable text-boxes for smooth layout.
- The charts which show details are on other sheets. The contest rules specify creating one chart or dashboard on a single page.
- Although built-in help is nice, there is no way to see it again. A help button would have been useful.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Shailesh Patwardhan
What is good:
- A crisp, simple and number-only dashboard
- Tests a few hypotheses to explain the migration and explores what may have caused the movement
- Sections on key findings & unexplained are very useful
What can be improved:
- The precision of numbers seems excessive given the nature of them (and margin of error). Could have rounded numbers to nearest %, thousand or million as needed.
- A few charts could have made the insights pop out better.
- Could have added analysis by a selected state. This makes the dashboard personal and interesting.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Shamik Sharma
What is good:
- Clear, elegant dashboard with lots of detail, interactivity and analysis
- Ability to analyze by selecting a single state, multiple states and year.
- Additional data on unemployment rate, gross state product (GSP), international migration helps understand the migration trends better.
- Very good colors, alignment, layout and feel.
- Built-in Help sheet to explain the dashboard
What can be improved:
- While the dashboard provides powerful analysis and ability to interact, a little bit of conclusions or summary text could have helped in interpreting it better.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Somalinga K
What is good:
- A simple dashboard with ability to explore any given state’s migration trends and understand one state to another flows.
- Colorful and simple.
What can be improved:
- The data-validation in cell I2 was incorrectly setup (corrected it in download file)
- Instead of showing data as-is based on selection, could have added some analysis or exploration on why the migration may have happened.
- Should have used consistent fonts, alignment & colors and prevented errors thru IFERROR()
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Srinivas Chilukuri
What is good:
- Beautiful colors and layout. Enables quick analysis and exploration.
- Ability to select a state & year for deep-dive analysis
- Additional data median income, temperature & crime-rate helps understand migration better.
- Inflow vs. outflow scatter plot is interesting
What can be improved:
- The Choropleth map on top feels under-utilized. Could have generated map based on selected state instead of all states.
- Alignment is a bit off in few places. Also the charts on right could use grid-lines or repeated axis labels for better readability.
- The file is password protected (VBA code). This is against rules.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Stacey Baker
What is good:
- A very insightful & detailed dashboard.
- Ability to explore migration trends based on state, year, various metrics (crime rate, per-capita income, unemployment rate, median home value, median rent, % of unmarried population etc.)
- Ability to compare up to 4 states on various metrics to understand reasons behind migration.
What can be improved:
- The dashboard is too long. Could have reduced the map size and arranged everything on one screen / page.
- Reading the dashboard is tricky due to its length. A help sheet is needed.
Techniques used:
Become Awesome in Excel & VBA – Create dashboards like these…
My comments:
- Learn how to create interactive dashboards & reports using Excel
- Develop your own macros & VBA code
- 50+ hours of video training
- Learn at your own pace
- Click here to know more
Migration Dashboard by Suriya Banu
What is good:
- Unique design and interesting choice of colors & layout
- Ability to select a state by clicking on cells with state 2 letter codes.
- The neighbor state statistics is insightful. It shows consistent movement of people with-in neighboring states.
- Interesting facts about the state.
What can be improved:
- The home screen is drab and has no insights. Could have used it for overall summary and quick insights on migration trends.
- The pie charts are a poor way to depict data like this. Should have used column or bar charts.
- Year selection feels tricky. Should have used a more obvious method.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Thiruselvan
What is good:
- Very insightful & interesting dashboard
- Good mix of charts, observations, fun facts and analysis.
- Ability to select a state for in-depth analysis.
- Pareto analysis to understand migration of a selected state.
What can be improved:
- The pareto analysis feels forced. It would have been better to test whether a pareto behavior is exhibited by the data before going this route.
- Some place the alignment, font sizes, border thicknesses and colors are a bit off.
- Could have used an Active-X drop down for state selection.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Trevor Eyre
What is good:
- Interesting dashboard with ability to compare 2 states for given time period on various parameters
- Simple & elegant design
What can be improved:
- The controls for date range selection feel un-necessary as we have only 3 years of data. The other controls should have been intergraded in to the dashboard to make it compact.
- The charts & analysis leaves one wanting for more.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Tyler Barr
What is good:
- A colorful, interesting design with built-in help
- Slicers for selecting state & year
- Ability to zoom the map view is an interesting touch.
What can be improved:
- The map, 50 state table at the bottom & top 5 migration states on top right all depict same data. Could have removed one of them and used the space for other types of analysis.
- Picture links make the “Where are they coming from” section a bit stretched. Could have used textboxes or regular cells.
- Alignment is a bit off in few places.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Vikram Krishnamurthy
What is good:
- A detailed dashboard to explore migration from one state to another
- Analysis by yearly trends, average distance from selected state. Also you can explore GDP, personal income and employment for the selected state.
What can be improved:
- Poor choice of charts & colors. The 3d pie charts, in-consistent colors and layout makes it tricky to gain insights from this. Could have used simple bar charts and subtle colors.
- Lots of white space and redundant charts make it hard to understand key points. Should have reduced the charts and made them in to a tight layout.
Techniques used:
Become Awesome in Excel & VBA – Create dashboards like these…
My comments:
- Learn how to create interactive dashboards & reports using Excel
- Develop your own macros & VBA code
- 50+ hours of video training
- Learn at your own pace
- Click here to know more
Like all? Download one zip file with all dashboards
If you are planning to play with all these dashboards,
download this zip file [50 mb, ZIP file].
Make sure you close all other workbooks before opening these files as many contain VBA code.
How do you like these dashboards?
Quite a few of these dashboards are really impressive. Seeing them is just like watching a magic show or world-class ballet performance. I will share my views & our judges views next week.
Meanwhile, Tell us which entries you liked most? Go ahead and share your views.
104 Responses to “Form Controls – Adding Interactivity to Your Worksheets”
how to change the font and font size in list box or combo box?
@Kyrel
You cannot change the font size/type in a List or Combo Box Form Control
The Active X versions do give you that functionaility.
tq so much...
[...] link [...]
Just curious, has anyone been able to get a valid cell link from a list box when multiple selections are made? With both the combo and list boxes, I can get them to work okay when selecting 1 entry, but as soon as I try to get multiple selections, the list box seems to simply stop working.
FYI, I'm using XL 2003.
Great post.
@Luke
You can only access the Multi Select options through VBA programming and is beyond the scope of the post.
@Hui
Thanks for the response. I was thinking that was the case, but figured it didn't hurt to hope this was somehow available. Great post on explaining all the different forms.
Luke,
I discussed different techniques of implementing a multi-select input feature in Excel. A combobox / listbox and some other. As Hui already pointed out, there is some VBA needed. However it is not too complicated and the post provides all example workbooks for free download:
http://www.clearlyandsimply.com/clearly_and_simply/2009/01/approach-with-caution.html
Great Post. I use form control whenever I can. The only thing I don't quite understand when to use form control or active x control. Most often I'd do a trial and error and see which fits my needs. If one doesn't then most often than not it's the other control that I'll need.
I like form control very much as it makes things cleaner to look at, and limit how others interract with my spreadsheet.
question on list box: what if I pick "Multi" under control on List box format control? I have never use that one. How would chosen 1st, 4th and 7th and 9th on the list would make an impact on follow up formula/equation??
@Fred -VBA code need to be used to untangle choices with a box that allows multi selection. i have not found any example code.
Why not have just one (Form Controls or ActiveX Controls) and make it work on all platforms? Wouldn't it be a lot simpler?
Also, it would have been good if we're able to format Form controls.
Something for Microsoft to think about.
@Roji
Form Controls have been around for a long time in Excel.
Active X is the relatively new boy in town.
Microsoft has always tried to maintain backward compatibility with file formats and I would suggest that is why it is maintained.
A general observation - if you put too many of these controls on any one sheet ie Checkboxes then that sheet takes for ever to take focus so I am reluctant to overdo it
Chandoo - Just downloaded your excellent "Excel 2007+ Examples" file. Most useful !
What I can't quite figure out is on the Check Box tab how the TRUE/FALSE indicators show or hide the data line / chart element ? A brief explanation would be gratefully received.
Many Thanks
I just design an example of how to add interactivity to worksheets.
I've been playing with the pictures of shapes to create a solitaire where cards are generated in VBA from scratch. You can view and download from my blog.
@MarkyB: Thank you so much for your purchase. See http://chandoo.org/wp/2010/08/31/dynamic-chart-with-check-boxes/ for an example on what you are asking.
@MarkyB
The Check Boxes and other Form Controls don't show or hide the data line.
That is they don't control the chart.
.
They can be used to control the data that feeds the chart
I don't plot the data directly but via an intermediate range where I can use formulas to control the data
.
There are 2 techniques I use to do this
.
When a Check box is ticked a linked cell will be true
a) So use a formula for your data to make it say 200 when the Y Axis is set to a Maximum of 100
eg: =if(b1=TRUE,a10,200)
or
b) set the cells value to na()
eg: =if(b1=TRUE,a10,na())
.
Either way the point wont be plotted on your chart.
.
An Example of This is on the Check Box page of the example file above
http://rapidshare.com/files/455058939/Form_Controls.xlsm
I didn't realize ActiveX controls didn't work in Excel for Mac so I tested it out and you're absolutely correct. In fact, any VBA code that references an ActiveX control will fail when run by the compiler.
With form controls you can really look like a spreadsheet master. It also make it really easy for other users to enter data and ensure the integrity of the formats. Great information, thanks!
Hi there,
I have a question, It's very simple for you, I guess!!!
How can I get a vertical scroll bar (I get it yet) and an horizontal scroll bar (the challenge) in the same table?
The main idea is to show a 10x10 table, wich contains more than 100 rows and 100 columns?
I appreciate your advise a lot!!!
Kind regards,
pibfer
@Pibfer
You can use scroll bars linked to a cell and then use an Offset in your table to do what you want
Refer an example at: https://rapidshare.com/files/4271493887/Table_Scroll.xlsx
Hello Hui,
Is it possible to upload this example one more time? I working in the same type of problem as Pibfer.
Thank you
Regards,
Victor.
@Victor
I closed my Rapidshare account when they wanted to start charging me for the storage.
Luckily I moved all the files to Dropbox
The link is now:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1avww8j6htg9wj2/Table_Scroll.xlsx?dl=1
Thank you Hui
Best Regards
Victor.
[...] Using form controls♥ Dynamic Charts with Check [...]
Is there a way to wrap text in a form control list box? I do not want to increase the horizontal size of my box to fit my list choices. Thanks!
[...] Using Form Controls [...]
How do we get the vale of a dropdown box in excel ?
@Pooja
Right click on the Drop Down box and Look at the Cell Link cell Reference
That cell has a number which can be used to lookup using Vlookup or Index the value from the source range
Lets say your source Range was AA1:AA10 and cell link was AB1
You can put =INDEX(AA1:AA10,AB1,1)
anywhere to return the value displayed in the DropDown
Verging on off-topic, but an important consideration! The Selected property of the listbox on the Mac appears to be broken, so it seems useless cross platform. If you looking to iterate through to work out which items are selected using (for example):
For i = 1 To .ListCount - 1
If .Selected(i) Then
Action here
End If
Next i
The method works on Excel 2010 but seems not be supported in Excel 2011.
Anyone got a work around?
I'd like to use the radio-select buttons on one sheet, for multiple things. Example... Question 1... Select Yes or No. "Yes" performs a function, "No" performs another. Works great on the first question. However, when I get to question 2.... My Yes / No button's cell reference defaults to the cell references in question 1. If I change it, question 1 defaults to question 2. Can you only use these form controls once-per sheet? ugh!
@Eric
Insert 2 radio buttons
Set their properties, cell links, text
Then add a group box
Group the 3 items
.
Repeat
Is there a way to completely lock an option button or check box so when it is selected and you have protected the workbook/sheet, no one else can change it. Currently anyone can click on a checkbox and remove the check.
Is there a way to lock the checkbox so it can not be unchecked by the user? I would like the checkbox to "default" to checked and not let the user change it.
My suggestion would be to right click the check box, click form control, then under control and then value, click checked then ok. Then protect the worksheet.
Anyone know if there's a way around the fact that the Extend option for Forms listboxes no longer works?
In 2003, if you checked Extend in a listbox, you could select multiple entries by keeping the CTRL button pressed while clicking each entry. In 2010, when you press the CTRL button and click on an entry in the listbox, the whole listbox gets selected.
I'd prefer not to use the Mutli option.
Thanks!
Is there a way to make the vertical scroll bar on an active x drop down list wider? The one I'm working with is super tiny & I haven't found in the properties how to change it.
@Infinitedrifter
Not that I am aware of
hi there! tanks for the post. 🙂 im starting familiarizing those control.. i want to have an idea of making an option form as reference to any formula..and how it works when it is included in the equation.. Tnx..
is this possible to assign a value to each button and it will appear to the linked cell?
Hi! Thanks for the tips! All I need are scroll bars to increase/decrease cell values, for which I use excel mixer pro (convexdna.com, I think). It makes amazing charts, on top of providing sliders. Has anyone tried it on excel 2011 for Mac? Do you know of any other similar tool?
Hi!
I am trying to add insert tick box. I have thousands of documents that i am recieving and would like to tick the box when i have recieved this information so i need to have alot of tick boxes over a wide cell range, how can i insert tick boxes over a wide range without individually adding them? I also would like to lock this box once i have selected it so that i cant mistakenly click it, is this possible?
Thanks!
@AB
You may want to have a look at this solution which Daniel at ExcelHero.com posted a while back
http://www.excelhero.com/blog/2011/03/excel-dynamic-checkmark.html
hello,
i wonder if there is a way to ajuste a range size controling a spinbutton.
ex:
when spinbottun says 1, the range became (a10:a10)
when spinbottun says 2, the range became (a10:a12)
when spinbottun says 3, the range became (a10:a13)
and so on
....
and i wonder if ther is a way to establice a range size with a formula inspired in this thing: =(a1:a"(=COUNTA(b1:b10000)")
thanks
@Silva
Q1- Maybe
Do you mean like
=OFFSET(A10,,,Spinbuttonlink,)
or
=Sum(OFFSET(A10,,,Spinbuttonlink,))
.
Q2 - Yes, Use Indirect
=INDIRECT("A1:A"&COUNTA(A:A))
or as a range
=SUM(INDIRECT("A1:A"&COUNTA(A:A)))
is there a way that you can show like an order form with check boxes on a facebook page then once submitted it will be compiled in another workbook or page where it cannot be accesed by visitors or viewers anymore? I am trying to prevent pranksters from vandalizing clients orders on an order form I am trying to create using excel. thanks.
I have spread sheet with Name of player in Row and his career highlights in column. I wanted to fetch particular details of player in one click so I created the combo box from form control. Combo box will give list of player and respective position in input range. Using if statement the data will be fetched to show particular details of player. I got what I wanted using simple "if" statement.
In my actual spread sheet the column and rows are more than 15. Is there any better alternate formula or neat formula for this?
@Ashwin
Have a look at Using Index(Match( ))
Refer: http://chandoo.org/wp/2008/11/19/vlookup-match-and-offset-explained-in-plain-english-spreadcheats/
how to use button (form control) to function like spin button, to increase value to an existing cell?
eg. value 10 in cell A1, and with a click of the button, it increases to 11
thanks
@Raymond
have a read of: http://chandoo.org/wp/2011/03/30/form-controls/
I saw a question here earlier and wondering if anyone knows the answer. Tim asked above in September. I think I have same question. I'm working on a form where we complete some data and customer completes the rest - we use the protect sheet featuer. I have used the locked cell option to lock down cells from customer changes. It doesn't seem to work for drop down lists though. If I click format control on the drop down list and select "locked" on the protection tab it doesn't work. When I protect the sheet, the user can still change the value slected in the drop down. Looking to lock that down. Thanks in advance for any help.
If you are working within a sheet using data validation it is possible to enter a 'new' value if there is a blank cell within the drop down list range and 'Ignore blank' is checked - may be a clue to your data entry form problem - Good luck
Check Box
? Under Format Object, move and size with cells is grayed out, why is this not available?
I want to format the checked box to a specific cell.
Thanks.
[...] [Related: Introduction to Excel Form Controls] [...]
Namaste chandoo garu,
I am abdul wahed. How are you ?
I have a small query regarding ms excel .
In the institute I am working that is NIIT,THANE 1 of mumbai. I have accidently deleted one excel sheet tab called poonam tab and saved the file.That tab conatined data of 6 years students details.The cashier si screaming at me and crying like anything .
I said that She should have put the backup of file ? Big problem has happened here ?
Now how can I recover the lost data ?
How to create an excel backup file ?
Help me.
Waiting eagerly for your reply
bye
Regards,
Abdul wahed
@Abdul wahed
1. Look for backups!, Official Backups, Has anybody taken a copy or emailed it recently etc
2. Using Windows Explorer Look in the directory where the file was, are there any odd named files? If so copy them and put them aside somewhere. On the copies rename them to *.xlsx and then try and open them in excel
3. Start typing!
[...] Set up a scroll bar form control [...]
[...] Combo boxes for selecting sort & view options [...]
[...] Check boxes – to mark each activity as done (or not done) [...]
[...] To insert check boxes & list boxes see this tutorial. [...]
Spin Button Challenge
I successfully linked a spin button form control to a cell, and have the spin button update the value shown in the cell. Great!
Now I want to take this further. I want to have the spin button cell link to a formula such as indirect or offset so that I might update another cell, which in turn easily changes the cell to which a particular Cell Link, the spin button refers. The Cell Link doesn't seem to be able to accept a formula such as OFFSET or INDIRECT. Can anyone help me with this please?
Ultimately what I want to achieve is to set up a template with spin buttons that update a summary page value which in turn change the displayed value on the template.
I want to have many templates, so I need many rows on summary page, and I want to have a cell on each template such as 1, 2, 3 etc. that is used to refer to the row number offset, which in turn is used in the spin button Cell Link to update the correct row in the summary worksheet based on the template number.
I would appreciate any help, even to solving this problem via a completely different method.
Many thanks in advance
@Brett
Hi from West Perth
You cannot link controls to formulas as you are suggesting
As you have already done, you link a control to a Cell
You can then use that cell in a Offset or Indirect formula as you have suggested
The Spin control changes the cell link cell
The cell link value is then used in the Offset/Indirect to adjust the range/sheet that is being sought
If that doesn't help you can email me, click on Hui... above, email address at bottom of the page
Thanks Hui
Happy Greetings to another Perthian.
Your help is much appreciated.
I need to digest what you have said. I can use offset or indirect functions but I can't see how I can get them to work in this instance. I will likely write to you.
Take care,
Brett
[...] 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] [...]
How to add list name in Combo-box ??
@Aniket
There are two ways to load a Combobox
1. Line by line using
With ComboBox1
.AddItem "Yes"
End With
or
2. Load an array and then load the array in one line to the Combobox
ComboBox1.List = strArray
The files in here uses this technique:
http://chandoo.org/forums/topic/print-macro-for-selected-sheets-from-200-worksheets
How do you refer to a worksheet form control (e.g. button) in VBA code?
Something like:
Dim btnHelp As Shape
Set btnHelp = ActiveSheet.Shapes("button 1793")
Is this correct? Or should one do it differently?
@Jacques
It really depends on what you want to do with the buttons with VBA?
As most controls have a cell link, it is generally easier to reference that address to collect the status/value of the button
Hi,
Is it possible to have a Check Box (Form Control) appear/disappear in a cell by selecting a value from a dropdown menu? For example: I have my dropdown menu in cell b2. Based on certain dropdown values, I would like different Check Boxes to appear in B4-B6.
Meaning, if B2="Apple", I need B4 to have a check box to enable "Granny Smith", B5 to have a check box to enable "Pink Lady", and B6 to have a check box to enable "Fuji". But if B2="Grape", I need B4 to have a check box to enable "Green" and B5 to have a check box to enable "Purple".
I am open to using other types of form controls or coding to make this happen--it's just that my knowledge in that area is slim.
Appreciate the assistance!
@Chelsea
Yes
It requires some VBA Code
Can you post your file somewhere?
refer: http://chandoo.org/forums/topic/posting-a-sample-workbook
[...] Related: Introduction to form controls. [...]
[...] Option buttons to select the course [...]
How do you change change the index value of form control spin button with vba? The spin butoon contains two items. Something like Worksheets("Sheet2").Shapes("ListBox_TASKS").
Thanks...
@Zachary
The spinner doesn't have a value
So adjust the cell that the Spinner control is linked to
Thanks very much!
[…] Form controls to capture user choices. […]
[…] you know, there is a form control in Excel that behaves like on/off switch. It is called check box. Although they are easy to use, check boxes are not very slick. So I though, why not make an on/off […]
I like this template. I may modify how the checkboxes work though for a couple reasons:
1) It's a pain to add more rows. If I want to add 10 more rows, it appears that I have to re-point each new object to the appropriate link-cell. Otherwise, they all point back to the copied row - checking one causes all of them to check.
2) I can't group and collapse rows in the checklist without all the objects stacking together and remaining visible in the lowest non-collapsed row. With a simple "x", this would be ok.
One solution would be to have a simple "x" instead of a checkbox object. I could just use an "x" to mark complete, and make the TRUE/FALSE based on an If formula (If "x" then TRUE; otherwise FALSE).
You actually make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find this matter to be actually something that I think I
would never understand. It seems too complicated and
very broad for me. I am looking forward for your next post, I'll try to get the hang
of it!
So I've got a spreadsheet with some scrollbars, and when I quit the sheet, it doesn't save my format controls for the page change. Minimum and maximum values and incremental change are stored, but my page change is not--upon opening it always defaults to 0 page change.
What the heck? Suggestions?
C
@Chris
I've never seen Excel do that
A few ideas:
1. Are you using Form Controls or Active X Controls?
Changing to Active X Controls has fixed up a few odd things for me in the past
2. Try resetting the internal links in the file
Close Excel if open
.
Start Excel
Open your File
Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F9
Save your file
Close Excel
.
Start Excel
Open Your file
"They also have much better ties to VBA in terms of programmability and have a number of events that can be accessed programmatically."
I don't understand how you can say this if you can't even acess them programatically in any reasonable way. Sorry to come off so negatively but, I wasted days on trying to find a solution that should be as fundamental as incrementing a counter.
And BTW, Google searches for an answer that doesn't exist is great at producing thousands of dead ends.
You cannot put them in an array such as ShapeRange, you cannot identify the control name in an expression and requires some kind of awkward workaround like finding a unique property I guess?
Only solution seems to be hard coding the control name So if I have a 25x25 array of buttons, to change one I need to select from 625 cases? And once I give up I need to completely change my strategy and now 2 weeks work is trash.
But to work with a shape it's just a matter of:
ShapeName = "SomeName" & i
Shape(ShapeName).someproperty
Or create a ShapeRange array and reset a large group with a single statement
Am I offbase here? I really hope I'm wrong but I can't seem to find the answer other than one trick that required a new class but that treats all controls like they are clones which might work for some unique cases.
If you think this in just non constructive criticism, I wish I'd found one statement like this in my searches weeks ago.
Hi.. I am using combobox for one report. My need is i want to link 3 to 4 combo boxes to show the report understandably. Eg. If i am selecting "Zone 1" from combobox1, the combobox2 should show all the "Regions" under region 1 and combobox3 should all the "Branches". ie-Combobox1 for "Zone", Combobox2 for "Region" and Combobox3 for "Branch".. Please help me out sir... Thanks...
Hi.. I am using combobox for one report. My need is i want to link 3 to 4 combo boxes to show the report understandably. Eg. If i am selecting “Zone 1? from combobox1, the combobox2 should show all the “Regions” under Zone 1 and combobox3 should all the “Branches”under region 1. ie-Combobox1 for “Zone”, Combobox2 for “Region” and Combobox3 for “Branch”.. Please help me out sir… Thanks…
Not sure this is still monitored, but hoping you can help. I've created a worksheet that is sortable by checkboxes. This is probably outside the scope of this page, but . . . The macro code is as follows:
Sub Front_Door_click()
'
' Front_Door_click Macro
' When clicked, opens all FR DR options
'
'
If Check_Box_28 = True Then
Check_Box_30.Value = False
Check_Box_32.Value = False
Check_Box_34.Value = False
End If
If Sheets("Master List").CheckBoxes("Check Box 28").Value = 1 Then
Range("C193").Select
ActiveSheet.Range("$A$8:$X$206").AutoFilter Field:=3, Criteria1:=Array( _
"FR-LH", "FR-RH", "FR-RH FR-LH", "FR-RH FR-LH RR-RH RR-LH", _
"FR-RH FR-LH RR-RH RR-LH SD-RH SD-LH", "FR-RH FR-LH SD-RD SD-LH"), Operator:= _
xlFilterValues
Else
Range("C193").Select
ActiveSheet.Range("$A$8:$X$206").AutoFilter Field:=3, Criteria1:=Array( _
"FR-LH", "FR-RH", "FR-RH FR-LH", "RR-LH", "RR-RH", "RR-RH RR-LH", "SD-RH", "SD-LH", "SD-RH SD-LH", "FR-RH FR-LH RR-RH RR-LH", _
"FR-RH FR-LH RR-RH RR-LH SD-RH SD-LH", "FR-RH FR-LH SD-RD SD-LH", "RR-RH RR-LH SD-RD SD-LH"), Operator:= _
xlFilterValues
End If
End Sub
That's the code for one button, the other buttons list Rear Door options or Sideliners. The code works perfectly, but when a checkbox is chosen it jumps you down the page, sometimes below the list completely. How can I force it to stay at the top of the page?
@Chris
Add a line at the very end of the Subroutine before the End Sub
Range("A1").Select
hi Chandu,
I am facing problem in adding ALL option in combo box and then sum upon selection.
Like Sales of Region
A
b
c
d
All region
Can you help me ? How Can I do that?
@Adil
Can you ask the question in the forums
http://chandoo.org/forum/
Please include a sample file?
I normally use an If inside a Sumproduct function for that task
=Sumproduct((If(A1="All region",1,Region Range=A1))*(Sales range))
Hi,
I have created a dashboard using "Option/ Radio Button" and received a lot of appreciation.
Thank you for that!!!
Moving ahead, I have a query in the same.
Now I want to put those option button/check boxes in a way that whenever I'll select both of them, there will be two charts appearing at the same time so that I can compare.
I hope you got it what I am trying to say.
Awaiting your reply.
Regards,
Prajakta
hi
i am iranian
i like to leaning excel industrial
Hello,
I want to learn sumproduct() function.. can anyone discuss with proper example as i found it very tough to understand.
Where it is used and how?
Regards,
Mahantesh
@Mahantesh
Have a read of:
http://chandoo.org/wp/2011/12/21/formula-forensics-no-007/
http://www.excelhero.com/blog/2010/01/the-venerable-sumproduct.html
http://chandoo.org/wp/2011/05/26/advanced-sumproduct-queries/
its very interactive form in excel.. how to create form by calling value from one column..? How to create pop up entry data form in excel, by clicking a member
Hi Chandoo,
Is there any chance to select multiple radio buttons at a time in excel 2013.
please help me on this.
Regards,
Ramesh
@Ramesh
If your talking about Form Control Option Buttons
No, They are either on or off and when grouped only a single one can be active
If you want to select multiple items use a Check Box Form Control instead
You can use separate Radio Control Buttons
Each must belong to its own group
Each group will have different cell links
Then you will need to apply the logic to control them yourself
I have added the SEP date control to a spreadsheet to provide a date picker.
Does anyone know if it is possible to link the output (the picked date) to a text box or cell elsewhere in a workbook?
I have a form where I'd like to be able to pick the date, and then show this date on an output worksheet somewhere else.
Thanks
Andrew
[…] Using Form Controls […]
Hi,
Regarding the cell link in the Form Control. Can the cell link value be dragged from cell to cell vertically without having to input individually as a time saver? I would like to have c3, c4, c5, c6, etc. but when I try dragging it just populates c3 all the way down.
@Donna
A cell link can only refer to a single cell and can't be dragged as you describe
@Donna
In a week or so I will be writing how to link 1 control to a number of Cells !
Stay tuned
Comprehensive guide on excel form controls.
What are problems with using Active X controls?