Game for some charting awesomeness?
Off late, I have been doing a lot of data analysis and visualization on performance ratings, salary hike, gender pay equality etc. Today let me share you an awesome way to visualize massive amounts of data.
Scenario: Your organization of 3,686 people recently went thru annual performance ratings & review process. At the end of it, everyone was offered some salary increase (from $0 to $24,000 per year). You have 7 business groups. How do you tell the story of all these salary hikes in one chart?
How about this one?
Ready to know how to create this in Excel? Read on.
Tutorial: Creating jittered scatter plot in Excel
That is right, what you are seeing above is good old scatter plot with a bit of jitter (random noise added to X values). This way, when too many dots are at a single point, we spread them apart to show more.
Let’s look at data:
Here is a sample of 3,500+ employee’s ratings and salary hikes (randomly made up), with the usual columns:
Convert rating and group names to numbers:
Since we can’t use rating and group names in XY plot (we need numbers, not text), let’s convert these in to numbers using simple MATCH() formula.
We get two new columns, like below:
Creating X & Y values from data:
Next up, we need to generate the X & Y values for our plot.
Y value: This is easy. It is the amount of salary increase with two twists:
- If employee got $0 hike, we want to omit them in the plot. This will remove many of dots from the plot (less clutter)
- If an employee is unrated (even if they got a hike), we want to omit them too. This is because our plot has only 4 rating levels per group. There are very few unrated people and they are not the focus of this chart.
We can create Y value using a simple IF formula like below:
- =IF(OR([@[Salary Increase $]]=0,[@[Rating 17 (number)]]=5),NA(),[@[Salary Increase $]])
X value: This is the tricky bit. Since there are 7 groups, each with 4 ratings (excluding the unrated), we have 28 possible X values. We want to space these out so dots for one group + rating combination don’t encroach other combination.
Let’s say we give 10 units of space per group.
That means, we have 2.5 units of space per rating in that group (and total of 70 units of space).
Now, the dot needs to plotted at the center of this 2.5 unit of space (ie at 1.25)
The basic formula would be: =[@[Business Group]]*10+([@[Rating 17 (number)]]-1)*2.5+1.25
But what about the jitter?
Aah, right. We need to add random noise to X value. Since each rating has 2.5 of space, how about noise between -0.7 to 0.7 ? This still leaves plenty of space on both ends thus keeping the plot clear.
We can use below formula to generate the noise.
=RANDBETWEEN(-700,700)/1000
The final formula for X value goes like this:
=[@[Business Group]]*10+([@[Rating 17 (number)]]-1)*2.5+1.25+[@Noise]
Here is how our X,Y looks at this stage:
Data prep done, let’s move to the plot.
Creating jittered scatter plot
- Select both X & Y values and insert XY plot. We get this.
- Set X axis limits and remove title: As all our dots are between 10 to 80, let’s set them as limits for X axis. Also, let’s remove the chart title.
- Add vertical gridlines: Although our dot towers are separated from each other, adding grid lines makes it easy to read the chart.
- Format the markers: Set fill to solid color and 25% transparency. This makes the dots look nice and shows the density when there are too many people at some co-ords.
- Set Y axis limit: So that we can focus on people getting salary increase of up to $10,000. This zooms the chart to meaty part while showing plenty of outliers. We get this:
- Last step: Remove plot and chart borders, so we can add extra info, labels etc.
Ok, now our chart is almost ready. Next step, making it a story.
Create a wireframe in 10 column area, as shown below:
Next place the chart inside the red box. Adjust plot area size so it fits in to 7 columns. Hold ALT key when adjusting so chart’s plot area would fit in to 7 columns. You need to repeat this step every time you fiddle with the chart. So do it at last.
Add extra story points:
- A clear and descriptive title
- A sub-title explaining what is going on and how to read the chart.
- Group names and rating names. You can use the below trick to align the rating labels inside cell nicely.
- Show some more stats like median hike, median new pay (if you have it), head counts and unrated counts.
- Add any footers, disclaimers (about excluded people in the plot etc.)
- Add a border around this entire wire frame so it all looks like one piece.
- Shade alternative columns in some dull color. This improves the readability. As our chart is transparent, cell fill colors will show up nicely.
We are done.
Inspiration for this – R
That is right. You can create a similar plot quicker and better using R. ggplot, an R library has built-in support for jittering dots on XY plots. So using that, you can create below chart with just 7 lines of code. This is what you get (yes, you can show each rating dots in different color, and yes, you can order the groups by number of people in them).
Here is the R script if you want to experiment.
Download Excel Chart
Click here to download the workbook containing this chart, tutorial and raw data. Try re-creating it in Excel (or your favorite visualization tool) to learn more.
How do you like this chart?
I had lots of fun making and tweaking this chart. It shows some interesting patterns about how salary hikes are distributed across groups and where everyone is.
How do you like this? Do you plan to add some jitter to your busy scatter plots? Please share your thoughts in comments section. And if you want some inspiration, check out more such charts.
Jittery about charts?
If you love story telling and beautiful visualizations but not sure how to get there, consider enrolling in our Excel School or 50 ways to Analyze Data programs. In these powerful courses, I teach you all about awesome data analysis and visualization techniques.
31 Responses to “Beautiful Budget vs. Actual chart to make your boss love you”
Would be considerably easier just to have a table with the variance shown.
On Step 3, how do you "Add budget and actual values to the chart again"?
There are a few ways to do it.
Easy:
1) Copy just the numbers from both columns (Select, CTRL+C)
2) Select the chart and hit CTRL+V to paste. This adds them to chart.
Traditional:
1) Right click on chart and go to "select data..."
2) From the dialog, click on "Add" button and add one series at a time.
One more way to accomplish it is just select the columns into chart. Press Ctrl+C and then press Ctrl+V
Regards
Neeraj Kumar Agarwal
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to work for me in Excel 2010. The "Var 1" and "Var 2" columns cannot combine two fonts to display the symbol and the figure side-by-side.
Secondly, there is no option to Click on “Value from cells” option when formatting the label options. The only options provided are Series Name, Category Name or Value.
@TheQ47... the emoji font also has normal English letters, so if you use that font, then you should be ok. I am assuming your computer doesn't have that font or hasn't been upgraded for emoji support.
Reg. Excel 2010, you can manually link each label to a cell value. Just select one label at a time (click on labels, wait a second, click on an individual label) and press = and link it to the label var 1 or var 2.
I am using excel 2010, please explain how to apply Step 12
Regards
Neeraj Kumar Agarwal
Hi Neeraj,
"Value from cells" option is only available in Excel 2013 or above. In older versions, you have to manually adjust the label value by linking each label seperately.
Read this please: https://chandoo.org/wp/change-data-labels-in-charts/
Sir, you are just awesome.
Your creativity has no limit.
Regards
Neeraj Kumar Agarwal
Hi Chandoo,
I just found your website, and really love it. It helps me a lot to be an Excel expert 😉
Currently I am facing with a problem at step 11:
Var1 Var2
D30%
A5%
B0%
B4%
B7%
C10%
C13%
D27%
I42%
Though at mapping table, I used windings, here formula uses calibra. How I can change it? I am able to change only the whole cell. In this case numbers will be Windings too.
Thanks for your help!
Hi Mariann... Welcome to Chandoo.org and thanks for your comment.
If you wanted to use symbols from wingdings and combine them with % numbers, then you need to setup two labels. One with symbol, in wingdings font and another with value in normal font. Just add the same series again to the chart, make it invisible, add labels. You may need to adjust the alignment / position of label so everything is visible.
[…] firs article explains how you can enhance your charts with symbols. You can simply insert any supported symbol into your data and charts. To some extend you can […]
You're a good person, thank you to share your knowledge with us, I will try to do in my work
Great visualization of variance. My question is that is this possible in powerbi?
How would you go about it?
HELLO, WHY CANT I FIND VALUES FOR LABELS IN EXCEL 2013
Dear chanddo sir,
What to do if we have dynamic range for Chart. How this will work. can you able to make the same thing works on dynamic range.
Sir Chandoo,
Good Day!
First, I'd like to say that I am very grateful for your work and for sharing all these things with us.
I tried to do this chart but it seems that the symbols don't work with text (abs(var%),"0%") unless we keep the Windings font style.
The problem is, it converts the text into symbol as well and you wont see the 0% anymore. I'm using Windows 7.
WOW - Segoe UI Emoji
This is the greatest discovery for me this month 🙂 Thanks for sharing.
Here's my two-cents:
https://wmfexcel.com/2019/02/17/a-compelling-chart-in-three-minutes/
Sir This is awesome chart, and very easy to made because of your way to explain is very simple , everyone can do. Thank you
one problem i am facing, I hv made this chart , but when i am inserting data table to chart it is showing two times , how can i resolve this
in this chart when i am adding new month data for example first i made this chart jan to mar but when i add data for the apr month graphs updated automatically but labels are missing for that new month
Hi Renuka,
Please make sure the formulas for labels are also calculated for extra months. Just drag down the series and set label range to appropriate address.
So I am playing with the Actual chart here - but amounts are bigger than your - you have 600 as Budget - my budget is 104,000 - is there a way to shorten that I am unaware of
thank you - I LOVE YOUR SITE
Thanks for the tips and tricks on Excel. In the Planned versus Actual chart examples, you use multiple values (ex. multiple Categories in above). How can this be done when we have only 1 set of values? For example if I have only this:
Planned Actual
SOW Budget 417480 367551
How can I create a single bar chart like the one above?
Thank you Chandoo.
This one is just perfect for my Quarterly Review presentation on Operational Budget against Actual Performance for the Hospital I'm currently working with.
Just Subscribed today (10 minutes ago)
Is there a way to make the table of data into a pivot table to be able to add a slicer for the graph due to many different categories and months?
Hi, I tried to modify you template with something appropriate for me, and I found a problem. this template was modified by me started with excel 2010, then 2016 and finally 2019. Same thing - somehow appear an error - or didn't show the emoticons for positive percentage or doubled the emoticons for some rows. I suspect to be from excel. if is need it I can sand you my xlsx for study. Please help if you can.
Hi Chandoo,
Could you please check the Var Formula in Step1. You have mentioned budget-actual and when i did this i got different values but when reversed like actual-budget i got the actual value what you have demonstrated in step1.
Please share your view.
This is a great chart (budget vs. actual). However, in trying recreate it, I cannot color in the UP Down bars individually, and they all become formatted with the same color. I'm using Office 365. Look forward to the feedback.
Thanks.
Dan
pls explain in detail step 7
While in the Excel sheet you have used following formula for Var
Var = Actual - Budget
But
in the note, you have written
Var = Budget - Actual
Good Presentation and Data information.thank you so much chandoo.