How to make a variance chart in Power BI? [Easy & Clean]
Power BI is great for visualizing and interacting with your data. In this article, let me share a technique for creating variance chart in Power BI. Variance charts are perfect for visualizing performance by comparing Plan vs. Actual or Budget vs. Actual data.
6 Best charts to show % progress against goal
Back when I was working as a project lead, everyday my project manager would ask me the same question.
“Chandoo, whats the progress?”
He was so punctual about it, even on days when our coffee machine wasn’t working.
As you can see, tracking progress is an obsession we all have. At this very moment, if you pay close attention, you can hear mouse clicks of thousands of analysts and managers all over the world making project progress charts.
So today, lets talk about best charts to show % progress against a goal.
Zelda Stamina Wheel Chart
I have been playing Zelda: Breath of the wild a lot these days and I LOVE the game. Considered one of the BEST video games all time, BOTW is beautifully designed and offers a lot of entertainment. Don’t freak out yet, Chandoo.org hasn’t suddenly branched into a video gaming blog. Instead, I am here to talk about Stamina Wheel Chart.
Beautiful Budget vs. Actual chart to make your boss love you
Call them by any name – Budget vs. Actual, Target vs. Actual, Goal vs. Progress, KPIs, Performance charts, but they are the bread and butter of business charting. So how about a drop dead gorgeous and insightful chart for your next meeting with the folks upstairs? Something like above.
Read on to learn how to create this chart in Excel.
I won’t eat donut with a thread inside, but lets make one anyway!
Today lets take a stroll outside what Excel can do and make something fancy, fun and may be useful.
Nowadays, many newspapers, websites and magazines are featuring info-graphics. An info-graphic is a collection of shiny, colorful & data-full charts (or often pieces of text.) In many of these info-graphics, you can see threaded-donut charts. Not sure what that is..? It is not same as the blasphemy of spoiling a soft, sweet, supple donut with a piece of string. No one should be excused for an offense like that.
What I am talking about is shown above
How to create a Then vs. Now interactive chart in Excel?
You have been there before.
Trying to compare last year numbers with this year, or last quarter with this quarter.
Today, let us learn how to create an interactive to chart to understand then vs. now.
Demo of Then vs. Now interactive chart
First, take a look the completed chart below. This is what you will be creating.
Use Advances vs. Declines chart to understand change in values
Lets say you are responsible for sales of 100s of products (which belong to handful of categories). You are looking at sales of each product in last month & this month. And you want to understand whether sales are improving or declining by category. How would you do it?
Turns out, this is not a difficult problem. In fact, this question is asked every day & answered using Advances vs. Declines chart.
You may have seen this chart in financial newspapers or websites. Shown above, Advances vs. Declines chart tells us how many items have advanced & how many have declined.
Read on to learn how to create this chart using Excel.