Today, we are going to learn 5 awesome pivot table tricks that will make you a star.

Click on these links to jump to tips.

Drill down pivot tables | Change Summary from Total | Slice & Dice Pivots | Difference from last month | Calculated Fields in Pivots

(If you are not familiar with basic pivot tables, you should check out this excellent pivot tables tutorial)

1. Drill down on your Pivots with Double click

This is by far the simplest and most powerful pivot table trick I have learned. Whenever you want to see the values behind a pivot field just double click on it.

Lets say, the sales of Lawrence in Middle region  is $5,908 and you want to know which items contribute for this total, when you double click on the number $5,908 excel will show a list of all the records that add up to this number, neatly arranged in a new worksheet. Instant drill down.

See this magical trick in action.

2. Summarize Pivot Data by “Average” or some other formula

By default excel summarizes pivot data by “sum” or “count” depending on data type. But often you may want to change this to say “average”, to answer questions like “what is the average sales per product”. To do this, just right click on pivot table values (not on row or column headings) and select “summarize data by” and select “Average” option.

(In excel 2003, you have to do this from “field settings” menu option)

3. Slice & Dice your Pivot Tables with Grace

Re-arranging pivot table layouts is as easy as shuffling a pack of cards. Just drag and drop the fields from row areas to column areas (vice-a-versa) and you have the pivot table rearranged.

Here is a simple screencast explaining the secret

4. Show difference from last month (or year) without bending backwards

We all know that you can show monthly summaries using Pivots. But what if your boss wants you to also include “difference from previous month”  as well? Now, dont rush back to source data and add new columns. Here is the right trick to make you a star.

• Just use field settings to tell excel how you want the data to be summarized.
• Right click on any pivot table value, select “value field settings”
• Now go to “Show value as tab” and Change “Normal” to “Difference from”
• Select “Previous” from Base-item area. Leave Base field as-is.

Now, your pivot is updated to show difference from previous column.

Bonus: There are quite a few value field settings you can mess with. Go play and discover something fun.

5. Add new dimensions to your Pivot Reports with Calculated Fields

Let us say you have both “sale” and “profit” values in your source data. Now, your boss wants to know “profit %” in the pivot report (defined as Profit/Sales). You need not add any extra columns in your source data, instead you can define custom calculated fields with ease and use them in pivot reports.

• To do this, Go to pivot table options ribbon, select “formulas” > “calculated field”
• Now define a new calculated field by giving it a name and some meaningful formula.
• Make sure you adjust the cell formatting so that output of calculation can be displayed (for eg. change number to % format)

(In excel 2003, the formula option is available from Pivot menu in toolbar)

See this tip in action:

What is your favorite pivot table trick?

Do you like pivot tables? What are your favorite tricks? What areas do you face difficulties? Tell me using comments.

Learn More about Pivot Tables:

• Excel Pivot Table – Tutorial (there is a video too)
• Authentic Resource on Pivot Tables from Debra
• Grouping Data in Pivot Tables

Now if you excuse me, I will go check that espresso machine and see if the beans need a refresh.

First let me show you what I am able to do in Excel:

(compare this with actual chart on Google)

How I made the flu-trends chart in excel?

1. Data, Data, Data: Data plays an important role in complex charts like these. The source data is thankfully available for download from Google.  Flu incidence data is available by week (Sunday to Saturday) for every week since 28th Sep, 2003. For each week the data if given for all regions in various columns. But I was not able to use the data “as-is” to construct this chart. I had to massage and rearrange it a bit.
2. The main issues is how flu season is classified (it starts on July and ends in June) and how the data is (we got weekly flu incident data, starting from Sunday to Saturday). The main issue here is each year, the weeks start on different dates. For eg. first Sunday in 2010 was on 3rd Jan where as in 2009 it was on 4th Jan. I tried using WEEKNUM() formula (examples), but it didn’t work well with the flu season (Jul to Jun). So I did some basic date math and ended up mapping weeks uniformly across years.
3. The next issue is taking one big table of data with dates in rows and regions in columns and transform it to weeks in rows, years and columns and actual flu data for the selected region in the cells.
4. Then I set up 2 cells, one where user would specify “region” and other where a comparison “year” can be selected. I have used data validation to control the valid inputs.
5. I used the MATCH, INDEX formulas to fetch corresponding weekly values for all years for selected region. Thanks to MATCH, INDEX and HLOOKUP formulas, this is not such a big task either. And if the optional comparison year is specified, we repeat that years values in another column. Otherwise that column is NA().
6. Using these columns, I made a line chart. Then I cleaned up the chart and formatted the 2009-2010 series in thick blue and rest all in thin light blues. The optional comparison series was colored in red (for contrast). [related: line chart examples]
7. The only remaining piece is to show the heat map of flu intensities below the chart. For this I have used the very useful 3 color scale conditional formatting setting in Excel 2007. (of course, I had to setup some extra calculations so that the intensities are normalized across the region / years and change when user selects a new region, but you already guessed it.)
   
8. I choose to drop the colorful legend as it adds little value.
9. The rest is some formatting and presentation.

What I learned from this experience?

• When I looked at Google’s chart, I doubted if it can be created in Excel. But I was wrong. It can be done in excel, and it takes no more than 2 hours.
• Data and structure of it play extremely important role in any visualization.We should understand the data and know how to arrange / transform / massage it, to make better charts.
• Date formulas are a flu in the nose.
• Excel 2007 conditional formatting is just awesome. [more examples]
• INDEX, MATCH, LOOKUP formulas are very powerful. I *respect* them. [here is a tutorial]

Download flu trends chart and play with it

Download the file (Excel 2007 only). The file is locked, but there is no password. Play with it and tell me if you like it.

Do you like this chart?

Have you done something similar in Excel? What was your experience like? Do you like this chart? How would you improve / change it?

More visualizations using Excel:

Olympic Medals by Country | Survey Results Dashboard | Test Cricket Statistics | Dynamic Charts

PS: After a looong time this post had many “I”s

PPS: Have a good weekend.

A mortgage payment is a monthly installment that you pay towards a loan. Any mortgage loan will typically have,

• loan amount
• duration of the loan (also called as tenure of mortgage) in years
• interest rate (APR) per year

Given these 3 parameters, we can easily determine the monthly installment amount (this will be the same amount for all months during loan tenure)

We are going to use Excel’s form controls (more on this below) to build a mortgage payment calculator like this:

Why you should not be boring and use the form controls

A form control is a button or check box or scrollbar or some other click-able thing you see in Windows. Do you know that you can add the very same controls to Excel spreadsheet to make the it interactive?

For example,

• instead of asking a user to enter “yes” or “no” in a cell, you can ask them to click a check box.
• instead of taking “age” in a cell, you can use a scroll bar and set the values from 0 to 100.

This way of gathering inputs is more fun, engaging and interactive.

Now that you find form controls hot and attractive, lets proceed and make a house loan payment calculator.

How is mortgage payment calculated?

As I said above, any mortgage (or housing loan) will have 3 parts – loan amount (p), loan tenure (n) and annual interest rate (r).

Given the values of P, N and R, we can find the monthly payments using Excel’s PMT formula like this:

=PMT(R/12,N*12,P)

[related: PMT formula syntax and examples]

We are dividing interest rate (R) by 12 since R is annual interest rate and we make monthly payments.

We are multiplying loan duration (N) with 12 since we are going to make monthly payments.

Making the mortgage calculator in Excel

We will use scroll-bar controls to take numeric inputs required (P,N and R) for the payment calculation. And we feed these values to PMT formula to find the monthly installment amount.

Step 1: Add a Scroll-bar Control

We will use this scroll bar to take “loan amount” input. To keep it simple, we will ask users to enter input in ‘000s. So, if the loan is $120,000, the input should be 120.

First add a scroll-bar form control to your excel sheet. To do this go to Developer Ribbon > Insert > Scroll-bar Form Control in Excel 2007. In Excel 2003 use View > Toolbars > Forms and select Scroll-bar control. (related: enable developer toolbar in excel 2007)

Add a Scroll-bar Control
Excel 2003	Excel 2007

Once selected, just add the control to spreadsheet by clicking anywhere.

Step 2: Set Properties for this Scroll-bar

To set the properties for the scrollbar control, right click on it and go to “format control” option. Now go to “Control” tab.

Here set minimum and maximum values for the scroll bar. To keep our model simple, just set minimum as 35 and maximum has 500.

Also, select a cell to link the scrollbar. When you do this, excel links the scroll bar to the selected cell. So whenever scroll bar is updated the cell gets updated too (and vice-a-versa). See this illustration:

Step 3: Add Remaining Scroll bars

Repeat the same steps for 2 other scroll bars. One for interest rate and one for loan tenure.

Make sure you set the minimum and maximum values in a reasonable range.

Step 4: Plug the values in to PMT formula

Now that the scroll bars are ready, just write the PMT formula. Assuming you have linked scroll bars like this:

• Loan amount in cell A1
• Interest rate in cell A2
• Loan tenure (years) in cell A3

The formula will be,

=PMT((A2/12)%,A3*12,A1)

Remember, PMT returns value in negative numbers (as it is the amount we need to pay, not get). But you can make it positive (for display purposes) by multiplying it with -1 like this = -PMT((A2/12)%,A3*12,A1)

Step 5: Play with your Model

Now your mortgage payment calculator is ready. You can play with it by testing various combinations and finding monthly payments. You can easily see what happens when you increase loan tenure or decrease interest rate.

Download Excel Mortgage Payment Calculator

Here is the excel mortgage payment calculator file. Download and play with it.

Bonus – Making an Amortization Schedule

You can easily extend this model to add an amortization schedule to see how much of each monthly payment is towards principal and how much is for interest.

• You can calculate principal portion for any month using PPMT formula like this =PPMT(R/12,M,N*12,P). Here “M” is the month for which you want principal amount.
• You can calculate interest portion for any month using IPMT formula like this =IPMT(R/12,M,N*12,P).

Click here for help: PPMT formula, IPMT formula and Excel Financial Formulas.

Do you love form controls?

Do you use form controls in your spreadsheets? I find them pretty intuitive and use them wherever I can. I have made many complex spreadsheet models easy to understand and work with by just adding form controls. The beauty is that, they require no programming or anything. You just add them and link them to a cell.

What about you? Do you love form controls? Where do you use them most?

Learn More about Excel Form Controls:

• Make a comparison chart using scroll bars
• Create a check box in excel
• Make a donut bar chart using form controls
• More form control examples

Thanks everyone for participating and making this a huge learning experience for everyone. Personally I have learned several useful dashboard and charting tricks. I will be sharing some of these lessons with all of you in the coming weeks.

How read this post?
This post is HUGE, I mean 2600 words huge. So you may want to maximize your browser window and fill up your coffee mug. Each of the 32 entries start with a title including authors name and tools used. Each entry includes a small image of the dashboard along with a link to see bigger version. All dashboards have links to original source files for you to download and play with.

Please note that these files are copyrighted to original authors and you cannot use them for commercial purposes.

I have included 3 comments against each entry based on my understanding of dashboard. Please share your opinions and reviews using the comments section of this post.

Javascript based Sales Dashboard by Ahmad (Option 01)

larger version

My Comments: Dynamic dashboard, lets user choose the dimensions of data and shows sales performance immediately. Easy to compare performance of various criteria, can get too cluttered if you add several dimensions. Uses Javascript, thus runs in most web browsers Download Source Files: Link 1 | Link 2

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Aires (Option 02)

larger version

My Comments: Shows analysis of “selected month” along with next 23 months. Includes a tweetboard for easy interpretation and key messages. Shows the growth rate of sales (derived metric) Download Source Files: Link 1

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Ajay (Option 03)

larger version

My Comments: Analysis of sales data by “sales person” shown very clearly. Aesthetically pleasing design, fewer colors and options to reduce confusion. Good use of sparklines. Stacked charts could use some improvement as they are difficult to read or compare. Download Source Files: Link 1 | Link 2 [Ajay's website]

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Alex Kerin (Option 04)

larger version

My Comments: Very good use of incell charts and sparklines (addin from Fabrice). Shows derived metrics like 3 months rolling sales. Also, uses a real map to show region-wise performance. Good use of tables with conditional formatting (also, headlines clearly call for attention). Download Source Files: Link 1 | Link 2 | Link 3 [Alex Kerin's website]

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Arti (Option 05)

larger version

My Comments: Dynamic dashboard, lets you compare sales by customer type or region or sales person. Also, compares values with averages. Good mix of charts for selected data along with big-picture. Also, includes clear headlines and messages (like “2008 sales person of the year is Chewbacca”). Fewer colors and objects, easy to read the dashboard. Download Source Files: Link 1 | Link 2 [Arti's website]

Excel Dashboard Toolkit (recommended product)

My Comments: Using Charley’s Excel Dashboard kit you can quickly and easily make excel dashboards from your data. I have personally tested and used this product and I find it extremely simple to use and can boost your productivity. Click here to try Excel Dashboard Kit

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Cole Burdette (Option 06)

larger version

My Comments: Lets you compare one combination of sales data like Sales in North region for product light sabres to the customer “galaxy” by sales person “hansolo” with all other possible values. Fewer charts thus easy to read without getting lost. Could use some formatting better color choices. Also, shows only trends, not much on current month’s data. Download Source Files: Link 1

Excel-Palo based Sales Dashboard by Cuboo (Option 07)

larger version

My Comments: Dynamic dashboard with option to select month and sales person. Shows historic data for last 12 months. Clever use of incell sparklines and bullet charts to show performance of product by sales person. Includes clear comments (headlines). Fewer objects, so easy to read. Also, has data labels and other chart elements to help us read the findings. Download Source Files: Link 1 [Cuboo's website]

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Duezzz (Option 08)

larger version

My Comments: Shows overall sales trend along with 2009 summary Analysis by customer type and product. Uses pie charts to show product composition in sales. Download Source Files: Link 1

Jmp based Sales Dashboard by Erin Vang (Option 09)

larger version

My Comments: Very rich dashboard presentation – thanks to JMP. Shows trends using panel charts (of lines). Includes 3 summary charts to prove points (like Luke sells more than others etc.) Interesting treemap style of visualization. Download Source Files: Link 1 | Link 2 | Link 3 | Link 4 [Erin Vang's website]

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Esteban (Option 10)

larger version

My Comments: Very good placement of charts – uses the natural positions of regions (north, east, south and west) Cleve use of incell charts (using REPT formula) Dynamic dashboard – user can select one of the products. Download Source Files: Link 1 | Link 2

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Hernan (Option 11)

larger version

My Comments: Clear layout with charts at yearly level and qtrly level. Fewer colors and easy to read. Includes headlines (key messages) by sales person. Very useful to understand the performance of sales persons. Provides analysis only from sales person point of view. Download Source Files: Link 1

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Karimmo (Option 12)

larger version

My Comments: Dynamic dashboard with option to select dimension and metrics along with time frame for reporting. Shows overall distribution along with chart for selected option. Easy to compare how the selection is doing wrt others. Could use some more charts. Download Source Files: Link 1 | Link 2 | Link 3

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Karimmo (Option 13)

larger version

My Comments: Dynamic dashboard with option to select dimension and metrics along with time frame for reporting. Has additional filtering options. Could use some more charts. Download Source Files: Link 1 | Link 2 | Link 3

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Karimmo (Option 14)

larger version

My Comments: Dynamic dashboard with option to select dimension and metrics along with time frame for reporting. Has additional filtering options. Could use some more charts. Download Source Files: Link 1

Build Dynamic Excel Dashboards (recommended product)

My Comments: Using Jorge’s Excel Dashboard Training you can make dynamic dashboards from your data in MS Access. I have personally tested and used this product and I find the training very useful. In a few hours you can build your first excel dashboard using this. Click here to get your copy

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Karimmo (Option 15)

larger version

My Comments: Dynamic dashboard with option to select dimension and metrics along with time frame for reporting. Has additional filtering options and shows additional charts on demand. Provides instant comparison of selected option against other data. Very cleaver use of form controls. Download Source Files: Link 1 | Link 2 | Link 3

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Karimmo (Option 16)

larger version

My Comments: Dynamic dashboard with option to select dimension and metrics along with time frame for reporting. Has additional filtering options and shows additional charts on demand. Provides instant comparison of selected option against other data. Very cleaver use of form controls. Download Source Files: Link 1

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Leandro (Option 17)

larger version

My Comments: Very good use of pivot charts to make dynamic chart One chart to rule them all. Could use some variety and trickery. Download Source Files: Link 1 [Leandro on twitter]

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Lee (Option 18)

larger version

My Comments: Simple and intuitive dashboard design. Fewer colors and better formatting. Very easy to read. Includes average lines to provide instant comparison. Could include some messages so that it is easy to scan the report to establish them. Download Source Files: Link 1

Excelcius based Sales Dashboard by Mahesh (Option 19)

larger version

My Comments: Uses Excelcius to show chart by selected options. Simple chart options, easy to read and understand. Could use some more charts. Download Source Files: Link 1

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Mahesh (Option 20)

larger version

My Comments: Uses Excel to show chart by selected options. Simple chart options, easy to read and understand. Could use some more charts. Download Source Files: Link 1

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Mahesh (Option 21)

larger version

My Comments: Dynamic dashboard with ability to select a sales person to see their performance. Uses combo charts to show sales along with growth rates. Could use better formatting and chart choices Download Source Files: Link 1

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Martin (Option 22)

larger version

My Comments: Simple design with dynamic charts. Very good use of form controls and pivot charts to show data based on user selection. Very easily provides analysis on how sales person are doing in regions etc. Could include some messages. Download Source Files: Link 1

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Matt Cloves (Option 23)

larger version

My Comments: Clever use of form controls. Very elegant design with clear colors and fewer charts. Good implementation of panel charts with ability to rotate so that comparison is easy. Focus on analysis from sales person point of view with overall trends and key messages. Very good design. Download Source Files: Link 1

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Miguel (Option 24)

larger version

My Comments: Very intricate design with ability to select date ranges, dynamic filters and powerful drill-down of data. Tables show performance of sales persons clearly while key KPIs are highlighted. Fewer colors and charts. Easy to read and compare without loosing attention. Download Source Files: Link 1

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Nick (Option 25)

larger version

My Comments: Cleaver use of pivot tables and pivot charts. Relies on excel pivot features to provide required dynamic filtering of data. Pivot charts can be cluttered when all filters are reset. Download Source Files: Link 1

Project Management Dashboards (recommended product)

My Comments: Using My Excel Project Management Templates you can make dynamic project status dashboards from your data in few minutes. These templates make you better at project management and reporting. Click here to try Excel Project Management Templates

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Pawel (Option 26)

larger version

My Comments: Fewer colors and charts, elegant design with ability to filter based on region, product or customer. Also has the ability to select a date range to generate charts. Answers 2 key questions: (1) how are sales persons doing based on selected criteria (2) How are sales persons doing for the entire timeframe on selected criteria. Could include some messages. Download Source Files: Link 1

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Pompadour (Option 27)

larger version

My Comments: Only 2 colors and just one chart type (lines on a panel chart). Provides comparison by region, product and customer type very easily. Could include some messages. Download Source Files: Link 1 [Pompadour's website]

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Stephane (Option 28)

larger version

My Comments: Dynamic dashboard with ability to select region, customer and product. Uses tables and conditional formatting provide key data. Includes derived metrics like qtrly performance, comparison with previous year etc. Has only one chart to show overall sales person trend for the selected options. Download Source Files: Link 1 | Link 2 [Stephane's website]

Flot-Jquery-Ajax based Sales Dashboard by Steven Ng (Option 29)

larger version

My Comments: Uses AJAX and Flot to generate the dashboard. Fewer objects and colors, so very easy to understand. Includes key messages (like rankings of regions, products etc. totals) Includes a dynamic chart to select sales person, region, product and customer. Also compares the selection against baseline (total sales by month etc.) Download Source Files: Link 1 | Link 2 | Link 3 | Link 4 [Steven Ng's website]

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Tessaes (Option 30)

larger version

My Comments: Fewer colors (just 2) and clever use of line charts. Includes key messages and data tables to compare values against each other. Dynamic chart to show the performance of selected dimension by various filters like region, sales person, product or customer. The top and bottom performers table is very interesting. Cleaver design with attention grabbing colors. Download Source Files: Link 1 | Link 2

Tableau based Sales Dashboard by Edouard (Option 31)

larger version

My Comments: Uses Tableau to generate a sales dashboard (requires tableau reader if you want to view this) Includes filters to choose date range, products, customers, regions and sales person. Includes several heatmaps to compare values instantly. Some charts can be improved (for eg. Growth by sales person has year 2008 with blanks, this is not required) Also heatmaps take sometime to understand. Download Source Files: Link 1

Excel based Sales Dashboard by Faseeh (Option 32)

larger version

My Comments: Uses excel pivot charts to show product, customer type and region-wise sales by sales person. Reader can easily filter values wanted using pivot features. Could use some more charts and messages. Download Source Files: Link 1

Excel Dashboard Toolkit (recommended product)

My Comments: Using Charley’s Excel Dashboard kit you can quickly and easily make excel dashboards from your data. I have personally tested and used this product and I find it extremely simple to use and can boost your productivity. Click here to try Excel Dashboard Kit

Thank you everyone

Thanks everyone once again for participating. All these entries are truly world class. Such beautiful display of skill. Thank you so much for teaching me how to make better dashboards.

I have added my comments to each option along with useful links to learn how to make such a chart.

There is a poll too, at the end.

(1) Gauge / Speedometer Chart

What is good about this approach?

• Familiar metaphor thus easy to understand
• Easy to construct
• Good for communicating one data point

What is bad?

• Takes too much space
• Bad design choice for most professional situations

Tutorials to make Gauge / Speedometer Chart

Tutorial 1 | Tutorial 2

(2) Thermometer Chart

What is good about this approach?

• Familiar metaphor thus easy to understand
• Easy to construct
• Good data to ink ratio

What is bad?

• Do not say anything about trends
• Not appropriate when actual values exceed targets

Tutorials to make Thermometer Chart

Tutorial 1 | Tutorial 2

(3) Bullet Chart

What is good about this approach?

• Comprehensive
• Aesthetic and very good data to ink ratio

What is bad?

• Difficult to construct in Excel
• Takes time to read the first time

Tutorials to make Bullet Chart

Tutorial 1 | A bullet chart alternative

(4) Area Chart

What is good about this approach?

• Shows trend along with current status
• Easy to construct
• Easy to compare

What is bad?

• Not good for small data sets

(5) Line Charts

What is good about this approach?

• Easy to construct
• Shows trend along with current status
• Easy to read and understand

What is bad?

• Looks too simple

(6) Column Chart with Markers

What is good about this approach?

• Easy to compare & read
• Easy to construct

What is bad?

• Not good for small data sets

Tutorials to make Column Chart with Markers

Tutorial 1

(7) Partially Overlapped Chart

What is good about this approach?

• Easy to construct

What is bad?

• Difficult to compare

(8) Traffic Lights

What is good about this approach?

• Familiar metaphor thus easy to understand
• Easy to construct (with Excel 2007 Conditional Formatting)
• Good for tables

What is bad?

• Do not tell the entire story, so should be used only in tables or with other displays

(9) Pie Charts

What is good about this approach?

• Familiar metaphor thus easy to understand
• Easy to construct (with Excel 2007 Conditional Formatting)
• Good for tables

What is bad?

• Works when targets are 100%
• Cannot show when actual values are more than targets
• Pie charts can be hard to read

Tutorials to make Pie Charts

Tutorial 1

(10) Using Text – Just say the thing

What is good about this approach?

• Easy to read
• Highest Data to ink ratio
• Very easy to construct

What is bad?

• Too simple
• Leaves the finer details out

If you are reading this post on email or feed reader, please click here to access the poll.

More Resources and Tutorials

• Budget vs. Actual Values in Charts – 14 more options
• Interactive Comparison Charts using Form Controls
• Use Tables to Compare Several Decision Parameters
• Charley’s tutorial on making bullet charts using excel

(a little secret: just change the year in “outline” sheet from 2010 to 2011, to get the next years calendar. It works all the way up to year 9999)

You can add notes to individual dates or complete month using the excel template very easily. There are 14 sheets,

• The first one called as “outline” calendar (also shown below) shows the calendar for entire year.
• The next 12 sheets show the monthly calendars from January thru December. Each month’s calendar also includes a snapshot (uses camera tool) of the previous and next month’s calendar. You can also add up to 6 notes per each date in the calendar. This is a good way to mark holidays, vacations and other important dates in the calendar.
• The last sheet shows a mini calendar – a compact yearly calendar for the year 2010 (or any other year specified in the Outline sheet). This is a good way to print a small calendar for your pocket or desk.

Download the 2010 Calendar

Download the Printable 2010 Calendar – in PDF format

Download the 2010 Calendar Spreadsheet – Excel 2007+ | Excel 2003

How the calendar works?

Just in case you are curious to know how the formula magic works.. read on.

• To generate a calendar, we need to know the year. Lets say the year is in cell A1.
• Now, for each of the 12 months – Jan thru Dec, we need to know what is the “first weekday” and “how many days” are there in that month.
• This is very simple to find, we can use formulas like =WEEKDAY(DATE(A1,1,1)) and =DATE(A1,2,1)-DATE(A1,1,1)
• Now, make a grid of 6 rows by 7 columns – something like this -
  
• Show blanks until we reach the first date’s weekday.
• Start showing numbers in increasing order.
• Once you reach the number of days in that month, show blanks again.
• Repeat this process for all the 12 months. Neatly arrange the grids so they look like a calendar.
• That is all!

Go ahead and download the free calendar template. The file is unlocked. So poke around the formulas and see how it works.

More free downloads | working with date and time in excel

At the outset SUMPRODUCT formula may not seem like all that useful. But once you understand how excel works with  lists (or arrays) of data, the SUMPRODUCT’s relevance becomes crystal clear.

SUMPRODUCT formula – syntax and usage

The sum-product formula syntax is very simple. It takes 1 or more arrays of numbers and gets the sum of products of corresponding numbers.

The syntax is =SUMPRODUCT (list 1, list 2 ...)

So, for ex: if you have data like {2,3,4} in one list and {5,10,20} in another list, and if you apply SUMPRODUCT, you will get 120 (because 2*5 + 3*10 + 4*20 is 120).

At this point it might seem like an almost useless function. But all that will change in the next 2 minutes, keep reading.

SUMPRODUCT and Arrays

Lets say you have a list of sales data with columns Name, Region, Product and Sales. Now, you want to know how many units the sales person named “Luke” sold. This is simple, you will write a SUMIF formula [examples] and use the Name column as “criteria range” and Sales column as “sum range”.

But, wait a second, you want to find how many units sales person “Luke” sold in the region “west”.

Hmm…. we have 2 options,

• Use an array formula
• Use a pivot table [what is a pivot table?]

Actually, there is a hidden third option, use SUMPRODUCT.

That is right, my friend, we can use SUMPRODUCT to do just this (and much more).

Using SUMPRODUCT as an array formula

Assuming, the data is in range A1:D10, with Name in column A, Region in B, Product in C and Sales in D, the SUMPRODUCT formula is,

=SUMPRODUCT(--(A1:A10="Luke Skywalker"),--(B1:B10="West"),D1:D10)

Okay, lets take a minute and try to understand WTF (what the formula) is doing.

• The portion --(A1:A10="Luke Skywalker")is looking for Luke Skywalker across planetary systems in all universes It is going to give us a bunch of ONEs and ZEROs, one if the cell has Luke, Zero if the cell has something else.
• The portion --(B1:B10="West")is doing the same, but gets 1s when the value is “West”.
• The portion D1:D10 is just returning all the sales figures.
• When you put everything together and multiply, it just works. Why? That is your home work to figure out.

Share your SUMPRODUCT formula Tips & Tricks

SUMPRODUCT formula can do much more once you understand how it works. This post is meant to open the door for you. Go ahead and explore the possibilities, then come back and share your tips with us.

Recommended Reading

I suggest reading the excel array formula examples, sumif with multiple conditions and other excel formula tutorials.

This post is part of our spreadcheats series

We all have atleast one story of how that one time the boss / co-worker / classmate / cat ruined the carefully crafted excel spreadsheet by mucking up the formulas or disturbing the formatting. There are 3 very easy solutions to prevent this problem,

1. Write an unleash_a_pack_of_wild_cats_when_someone_messes_with_the_file () macro: It is not an elegant solution, and cats are not very consistent, but it can work.
2. Move to marketing department, you dont need to send excel files any more, just ppts.
3. Or, read this post and learn 10 awesome tips on how to boss proof your excel files.

So here is the list of 10 tips to make better excel spreadsheets. I suggest using all these tips for a perfect boss proof workbook.

Restrict The Work Area Few Columns and Rows

Not all spreadsheets have 256 columns and 65000 rows of data. So why show the entire grid when you can, say, just show the 44 rows and 23 columns in which the sales report is presented.

To restrict the work area,

• Select the first column you dont want to see (24th column) and press CTRL+SHIFT+RIGHT ARROW. Now Right click and select “Hide” option.
• Select the first row you dont want to see (45th row) and press CTRL+SHIFT+DOWN ARROW. Now right click and select “Hide” option.

Lock Formula Cells And Protect The Worksheet

Formulas are the most vulnerable part of an excel sheet. You accidentally edit something, say in payroll sparesheet, and you just gave 3200% bonus to someone in the organization. That is alright if that someone is a CEO of a bailed-out bank, but in all other cases, you end up spending a sweet afternoon trying to figure out what went wrong.

So, it is better to lock the workbook formulas and protect the worksheet so that no one accidentally erase the formulas or mess with them. To do this follow the steps in the illustration above.

You can use the same trick to lock the charts and other worksheet objects.

Freeze Panes So that Your boss Knows what she is Reading

Freeze panes is a very useful feature. It locks the important items on the top so even when you scroll down you still see them. (You can do the same for columns, thus seeing the first few column even when scrolling left).

Bonus tip: Use excel tables (new feature in Excel 2007) so that you dont need to freeze panes. Learn more.

Hide Un-necessary / Calculation Sheets

It is fairly common for excel workbooks to have tens worksheets, some with data, some with calculations, some with intermediate stuff and only one or two sheets with actual outcome (like a dashboard or a report).

There is no reason to think that all these worksheets should be visible all the time to the boss. While it makes sense to have the data and calculations visible so that someone can audit the worksheet, I am sure you dont want your boss to waster her time doing that. So here is a handy tip:

• Select all the worksheets other than the output sheets and hide them.

Hide Rows / Columns

If for some reason, hiding worksheets is not possible, you can still try hiding rows and columns. This is a very good way to prevent someone from accidentally messing a with a row of “really big and complicated formulas”.

Just select the rows / columns you want to hide and right click and select the “hide” option.

Include Cell – Comments / Help Messages

We all know bosses have a busy mind. They dont have time to remember (or know) every little thing. Heck, sometimes they dont even know what somethings are.

I suggest using cell comments and help messages to give right information / guidelines to the spreadsheet end user, like “enter your age in this cell”. They are easy to implement and totally non-intrusive.

• To include a cell comment, select the cell and press SHIFT+F2 and write the comment.
  To include a cell message, select the cell, go to data validation, go to “input message” tab and type what you want.

Data Validations, Error Messages

Spreadsheets are complicated things that are carefully crafted with umpteen pre-conditions and assumptions. I am sure there is at least one excel file out there that will only work if a cat enters the input. But we are not talking about cats, the point is, it is important that right data is fed to the worksheet before the formulas (or charts or payroll macro etc.) can work. That is where data validation can help.

It is very easy to set up data validation in excel. Just select the cell and go to data validation (in Data ribbon / menu). There are several ways in which you can set up data validations,

• You can show an incell drop down box and ask users to pick from a list
• You can specify the type of data allowed (dates, times, numbers, text)
• You can specify the length of data
• You can specify the conditions on data (like between 2 numbers, less than a given date etc.)
• You can even use formulas to make your own data validations [example]

There are several examples of using data validation in this site. Go check.

Use Consistent Colors And Schemes

Anything looks better when it is consistent, even when it is internally screwed up. That same rule applies to excel workbooks as well. It will make your boss feel comfortable and relaxed to see an excel workbook with consistent colors and (simple) schemes.

I suggest using excel cell styles to define the styles for your workbooks. This ensures consistency and you dont have to spend after hours formatting the worksheets. Read more about cell styles.

Name and Color Worksheet Tabs Appropriately

It doesnt matter if you have designed an awesome excel dashboard, your boss can be still pissed because the sheet name is “Sheet 69″. That brings us to the last and final point.

Use appropriate names (and may be tab colors) for the worksheet tabs. This makes the navigation easy and boss proof.

Learn how to color excel worksheet tabs.

Before Closing The Workbook, Select Cell A1 On The Correct Sheet

Just before you finally save the workbook and e-mail it to the boss, make sure you are on the right worksheet (ie the dashboard or the report) and selected cell A1. The ensures that when the boss opens the workbook, she sees the right tab with right information, not some calculations or formulas.

That is all, you have just learned a handful of trick to impress your boss.

Share your boss proofing tricks for excel

Got an awesome idea that has been working on your boss? Share it with us in comments. I love to hear your stories and how you are using excel to further your career.

Be awesome, Learn few more excel tricks:

We at PHD have a simple goal – “to make you awesome in excel and charting”. Here is a list of articles I recommend reading if you are new here or just wanted to be more.

• 15 fun and exciting excel tips – who say spreadsheets are boring?
• 15 Excel formulas beyond IF() and SUM()
• 15 Excel productivity tips  that you dont know
• 10 things about Excel 2007 that you should know to work better
• More articles on excel productivity

Dilbert cartoon from Dilbert.com

Few details about the project management bundle for excel:

• The bundle contains 24 highly reusable excel templates for project planning, task management, timesheets, issue tracking, risk logging, status reporting and more.
• The templates come in 2 versions – Excel 2003 and Excel 2007.
• The bundle costs $30 for Excel 2007 or Excel 2003. You can buy both the versions for $45.

What will you get when you buy these templates?

When you purchase the project management bundle for excel, you get a zip file with all the excel files. The zip file contains the following templates in 19 different files:

• 7 Gantt Chart Templates for Project Planning & Tracking [know more]
• 3 Timesheet Templates for resource management [know more]
• 5 Templates for issue tracking, risk management & todo lists [know more]
• 3 Dashboard templates for project status reporting [know more]
• 2 Chart templates for making project milestone charts [know more]
• 4* Templates for burn-down charts, issue tracking charts [know more]

* If you are purchasing Excel-2003 version of the templates, you will get only 3 chart templates.

Who can purchase these templates?

The “Project Management Templates for Excel” toolkit is aimed at project managers and analysts who use excel to manage their projects. The templates are designed keeping the project managers in mind. You need just the basic knowledge of excel to start using these templates and make a difference in your projects.

Supported Versions of Excel

The “Project Management Templates for Excel” toolkit comes in two versions. One for Excel 2007 and above, another for Excel 2003. The templates use excel features like Data tables (or lists). So I don’t recommend you to buy this toolkit if you are running Excel 2002 or earlier versions.

Get your copy of Project Management Templates for Excel

How the purchase process works?

30 Days Money Back Guarantee

If you do not like the templates or have any other reason for returning them, please write to me at chandoo.d @ gmail.com and I will refund your payment. No questions asked. That simple!

Customer Support

We have opened a separate discussion forum area for the members who purchase the project management templates. Please log in to PHD Discussion Forums and ask your questions there. I will reply to you and resolve any questions you may have in implementing these templates.

Also, limited amount of support is available through e-mail. Feel free to write to me at chandoo.d @ gmail.com and I will get back to you at the earliest.

So what are you waiting for?

Click here and download your copy of project management templates for excel today.

Preparing & tracking a project plan using Gantt Charts
Team To Do Lists – Project Tracking Tools
Project Status Reporting – Create a Timeline to display milestones
Time sheets and Resource management
Issue Trackers & Risk Management
Part 6: Project Status Reporting – Project Management Dashboard
Bonus Post: Using Burn Down Charts to Understand Project Progress

Communication is a very important aspect of project management. Communicating with stakeholders, sponsors, team members and other interested parties takes up quite a bit of project manager’s time.

In almost all the projects I have been part of, the first and foremost question anyone used to ask us is, “how is the project going?”. There is no one line answer to this. A project status dashboard or project status report can help us express the project status in a crisp yet effective manner.

In today’s installment of project management using excel series, we will learn how to make a project management dashboard using Microsoft excel. [related: Making Dashboards using Excel]

To make the project management dashboard, you must answer the following questions,

• Who is the audience of this dashboard?
  • Top management or project sponsors or team members or other departments?
• What are they interested to know?
  • Day to day issues or High level stuff or Plans or Budgets?
• What is the frequency for updating the dashboard?
  • Weekly, Bi-weekly or Monthly or Once in a blue moon?

The answers to these questions will determine what goes in to the dashboard and how it should be constructed.

For our example, I have assumed the following scenario, but you can easily change the dashboard constituents based on your situation.

• Audience of the report: Project Sponsorship Team
• Interested to know: Project Progress wrt Plan, Blocking issues, Overall timeline and Delivery Progress
• Frequency: irrelevant (could be weekly or bi-weekly)

Step 1: Make an outline sketch of the dashboard

Based on the above answers, we vaguely know what should go in to the dashboard. Based on this, we should make an outline sketch of the dashboard. This will help you structure the dashboard on an excel spreadsheet. For our example, this is the outline I have prepared.

the finalized dashboard will look like this: (click here for a bigger version)

Step 2: Get the data to be placed on dashboard

Making a dashboard in excel is a complex and intricate process. Knowing the outline of the dashboard is only the 10% of work. Getting your data to calculate the dashboard metrics (or KPIs) is the most vital part of any dashboard construction.

In our outline, the sections 1,2 and 3 are purely data and 4,5 and 6 are charts prepared from data.

To facilitate this, first, let us create a worksheet named “data” where we can capture user inputs. These inputs can be further manipulated to make the dashboard.

For our dashboard, we need the following inputs,

• Overall project status and progress
• List of ongoing activities and issues

We will derive other inputs from the following,

• Project Plan Gantt Chart discussed in Part 1 will provide us the project plan
• Project Timeline Chart in Part 2 will give us the timeline chart
• Burn down chart will give us the project deliverable status
• Issue Tracker discussed in Part 5 will give us the metrics related to issues

Step 3: Put everything together and make a dashboard

[PS: I have greatly simplified the process of dashboard construction to keep the article readable. Please note that this step usually takes a few of hours and has lot more detail]

Now that we have all the bits of our data ready, we just need to bring them together to make a dashboard.

We will use the following excel concepts,

• Excel Camera Tool to get a live snapshot of the project gantt chart
• Conditional Formatting to show Red, Green or Amber traffic light to depict the project status
• Thermo-meter chart to show the project progress against 100% total
• We will create a stacked bar chart of outstanding issues by using sumproduct() formula [examples] to summarize using multiple criteria [counts for issue status="open" and issue priority="high", issue status="open" and issue priority="medium", issue status="open" and issue priority="low"]

Let us place the remaining pieces of dashboard from already constructed charts and available data,

• Burn-down chart to show the project deliverable status
• Project Time line to show the project milestones over a period of time
• We will create references to the “issue” and “activity” data and show only the first 5 items.

See the below illustration to understand how each part of the dashboard is constructed.

That is all, our dashboard is ready now.

Download the project management dashboard excel file

Unlike other downloads on PHD, this file is locked. Don’t panic, there is a reason for it. Next week I am going to release project management bundle for excel. By purchasing this bundle, you can get an unlocked version of this dashboard along with a handful of useful project management templates. Stay tuned and get a flavor of things to come from this locked file. The bundle is already released. Click here to buy it.

• To download the locked version of project management dashboard excel file click these links:  excel 2003, excel 2007
• To get an unlocked version of the dashboard along with 23 other templates, click here.

Tell us about your Project Management Dashboard / Status Report

Tell me about your project management dashboard, project status report formats and how it is constructed. Do you use excel or some other tool (like powerpoint, word) to prepare the report? How the report / dashboard generated? Is the process automated or manual? What have you learned from using / making such status reports?

What next?

This is the last installment of project management using excel series. I am looking for ideas to extend this series in useful manner. Please use comments to tell me what other activities of project management can be made easy using Microsoft Excel. I will try to write follow up posts if the topics are interesting.

Thanks a lot for reading the series and suggesting valuable inputs to make it better. I have learned a lot about project management and excel writing this series. I hope you have picked up few concepts too.

Tell me your feedback using comments.