Recently, I saw this chart on Economist website.
It is trying to depict how various cities rank on livability index and how they compare to previous ranking (2014 vs 2009).
As you can see, this chart is not the best way to visualize “Best places to live”.
Few reasons why,
- The segregated views (blue, gray & red) make it hard to look for a specific city or region
- The zig-zag lines look good, but they are incredibly hard to understand
- Labels are all over the place, thus making data interpretation hard.
- Some points have no labels (or ambiguous labels) leading to further confusion.
After examining the chart long & hard, I got thinking.
Its no fun criticizing someones work. Creating a better chart from this data, now thats awesome.
So I went looking for the raw data behind this graphical mess. Turns out, Economist sells this data for a meager price of US $5,625.
Alas, I was saving my left kidney for something more prominent than a bunch of raw data in a workbook. May be if they had sparklines in the file…
So armed with the certainty that my kidney will stay with me, I now turned my attention to a similar data set.
I downloaded my website visitor city data for top 100 cities in September 2014 & September 2013 from Google Analytics.
And I could get it for exactly $0.00. Much better.
This data is similar to Economist data.
Chart visualizing top 100 cities
Here is a chart I prepared from this data.
This chart (well, a glorified table) not only allows for understanding all the data, but also lets you focus specific groups of cities (top % changes, new cities in the top 100, cities that dropped out etc.) with ease.
Download top 100 cities visualization – Excel workbook
Click here to download this workbook. Examine the formulas & formatting settings to understand how this is made.
How is this visualization made?
Here is a video explaining how the workbook is constructed. [see it on our YouTube channel]
The key techniques used in this workbook are,
- SUMIFS, INDEX + MATCH formulas for figuring out data
- Sorting data by a particular column
- Conditional formatting to show % change arrows
- Form controls for user interactivity
Since the process of creating this visualization is similar to some of the earlier discussed examples, I recommend you go thru below if you have difficulty understanding this workbook:
- Suicides vs. Murders – interactive Excel chart
- Gender Gap chart in Excel
- Visualizing world education rankings
- Analyzing survey results with panel charts
How would you visualize similar data?
Here is a fun thought experiment. How would you visualize such data? Please share your thoughts (or example workbooks) in the comments. I & rest of our readers are eager to learn from you.
13 Responses to “Gantt Box Chart Tutorial & Template – Download and Try today”
Hi Chandoo
As one of your students I have followed your detailed example through with great success. However, Excel is acting in an unexpected way and I wonder if you could take a look?
http://cid-95d070c79aef808e.office.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/Gantt%20Box%20Chart.xlsm
On my version, I have to type 40239 (Which equates to 2 Mar 2010) to get the chart to display 31 May 2010 (which should be 40329)!!??
Have I done something wrong or is Excel acting up?
Thx
Oli
PS Your example file in 2007 displays correctly.
Hi,
I like this idea a lot, but I agree the name is a little drab.
As an American I may just be seeing things, but to me the combination of lines and bars on your chart looks like a bunch of cricket bats.
Maybe you could work that into a catchier name. 🙂
Cheers!
Here is some code I use to keep the axis synched.
It may be useful to some of your readers
It is based on a comment I saw on Daily Dose of Excel.
Function SynchGanttAxis(Cname, lower, upper)
'Sets the X min and X max for Category axis
Application.Volatile
On Error Resume Next
'
'Top Horizontal Axis
With ActiveSheet.Shapes(Cname).Chart.Axes(xlCategory, 1)
.MinimumScale = lower
.MaximumScale = upper
End With
'Bottom Horizontal Axis
With ActiveSheet.Shapes(Cname).Chart.Axes(xlValue, 2)
.MinimumScale = lower
.MaximumScale = upper
End With
End Function
Function SynchVerticalAxis(Cname, lower, upper)
Application.Volatile
On Error Resume Next
' Excel 2007 only
'Right hand vertical axis
With ActiveSheet.Shapes(Cname).Chart.Axes(xlValue, 1)
.MinimumScale = 0
.MaximumScale = upper
End With
End Function
@Oli.. Can you check your file again.. I see 40329...
@Dave: Even I saw things.. the bars actually looked like lollipops. How about calling this lollipop chart - now that would be yummy and goes along the tradition of naming charts after eatables (bar, pie, donut...)
@Bob: Superb stuff... thanks for sharing 🙂
Hi Chandoo
This looks really good and I think it can also be applied to show project phases / milestones.
Question: Thinking further could this be amended to display a project lifecycle (Idea through to Implementation say 7 phases) on one bar / row? Just imagine 20 projects within a programme all on one chart one bar each showing their respective lifecycle stages i.e. on one page.
Idea: As the Gantt Box Chart this is quite intensive to set up re formatting etc how about the added extra of once you have completed this to "Save as template" i.e. saves the formatting and layout of the chart as a template so you can apply to future charts. Simple to do and will save the time formatting etc again and again and again.
Therefore tip: Click on your chart demo and then click on Save As template icon (2007) - edit file name and click on save. Ready to use / apply via Templates in Change Chart Type window.
Thanks and be very interested if the lifecycle question can be resolved
Mike
How embarrassing.
I was obviously suffering from numerical dyslexia. I was one of those days.
@Mike H: You can easily make this chart to work like a generic project lifecycle plan chart. All you have to do is,
1. in a separate sheet define the steps of lifecycle and various dates in a table (with 5 columns for each of the projects you have).
2. now use a control cell to input the project name you want to show in the chart
3. based on the input, use OFFSET Formulas to get the correct data
4. Rest is same as the tutorial above
For more info on the dynamic charting visit http://chandoo.org/wp/tag/dynamic-charts/ and http://chandoo.org/wp?s=OFFSET
Your solution is really smart but in the en Excel isn't meant to do stuff like this. I, as a former PM, always thought is was frustrating that you had to do stuff like this for something simple like a Gantt chart. So I built Tom's Planner. And would like to plug it here. I think it really solves the problem you are trying to solve in the most efficient way. Check out http://www.tomsplanner.com for a free account or play around with the demo.
Hi there,
Chandoo - this is really a very nice and helpfull chart - I adopted it, so I can report a forecast or the delay of a certain task (coming from my role as an auditor for projects).
One topic I´m currently struggeling with: I do have a project lasting for lets say 12 month. For a management reporting, I want to have kind of snapshot, lets say one month back and 2 month in the future. I tried with the offset formula, but failed. Any idea?
Thx
Lopi
[...] Ein viel geliebter Klassiker ist die Erstellung von GANTT-Diagrammen mit Excel. Wir hatten das Thema wiederholt schon hier. Chandoo.org hat sich mal wieder mit einer neuen Variante hervorgetan: Das GANTT-Box-Chart. [...]
[...] [...]
Hi Chandoo - fantastic xls. One thing I can't figure out how to do is adjust the alignment of the vertical axis. I would like to left align so that I could indent to represent sub tasks. Can that be done? Or is there a better way?
I've been trying to work out if there's a way to show weekends on the graph. The closest thing I've got is to add them on a secondary axis, but then I haven't been able to keep both axis lined up together! Any ideas?
Following on from this - is it possible to show things like holidays?