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Archive for November, 2009

Top X chart – Show Top X values of a chart Interactively

Published on Nov 12, 2009 in Charts and Graphs, Learn Excel
Top X chart – Show Top X values of a chart Interactively

Two charting principles we hear all the time are,

  • Sort your data in a meaningful order before plotting it.
  • Show only relevant information, not everything – because un-necessary information clutters the chart.

Today we will learn a dynamic charting technique that will mix these two ideas in a useful way. I call this a Top X chart.

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Chart this Sales Data and get an iPod Touch [Visualization Challenge #2]

Published on Nov 11, 2009 in Charts and Graphs
Chart this Sales Data and get an iPod Touch [Visualization Challenge #2]

Here is a challenge many people face. How to make a chart visualizing sales data with several dimensions like product, brand, region, sales person name, year (or month or quarter) and one or two values like sales, # of units sold, profits, # of new customers.

In visualization challenge #2, all you have to do is a make a chart or dashboard to visualize this sales data effectively.

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What is Excel SUMPRODUCT formula and how to use it?

Published on Nov 10, 2009 in Featured, Learn Excel
What is Excel SUMPRODUCT formula and how to use it?

Today we will learn a new and exciting excel formula – the all powerful SUMPRODUCT.

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.

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PHD Gets a Facelift (again)

Published on Nov 9, 2009 in blogging
PHD Gets a Facelift (again)

Folks, I have an announcement for you. Our little site, Pointy Haired Dilbert got yet another face lift. Over the weekend, I have made some changes to the site layout and navigation to make it better. The key changes are, On archive pages (that is category, tag and monthly pages) you can see 15 posts […]

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Excel Links of the week [After a long time edition]

Published on Nov 9, 2009 in excel links

It has been a really long time since we have an excel links post here. That doesnt mean I am not reading anything exciting. It is just that I have gotten busy being a dad. But now that I am in to a saner schedule, we are bringing back the excel links. Here is a […]

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Lets Pimp a Gauge Chart [Chart Porn Friday]

Published on Nov 6, 2009 in Charts and Graphs
Lets Pimp a Gauge Chart [Chart Porn Friday]

Egil, one of our alert readers from Norway sent this to me in e-mail, which I swear, I am not making up – A Fancy Gauge Chart. See the e-mail and chart yourself. I’m having a lot of fun with your gauge template 🙂 To make it more industrial-like, I’ve added: 1. Brushed metal background […]

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Product Recommendation – Excel Lookup Toolbox

Published on Nov 5, 2009 in Learn Excel, products
Product Recommendation – Excel Lookup Toolbox

Anyone working on the data using excel will know the importance of lookup formulas. They are vital for making almost any spreadsheet or dashboard. That is why when my friend John Franco, who maintains Excel-Spreadsheet-Authors.com, wrote to me about his new book Excel lookup toolbox I was truly excited. In this post I am going to share my review of this product.

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Dashboard Best Practice – Google Analytics Intelligence Report

Dashboard Best Practice – Google Analytics Intelligence Report

Yesterday while checking my website analytics reports on Google analytics site, I have noticed a new beta feature called “Intelligence”. Out of curiosity I clicked on it. It took me to a an intelligence alert dashboard. Ok, lets just back up for a minute and understand what “intelligence dashboard” is before moving on. In the […]

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10 Tips to Make Better and Boss-proof Excel Spreadsheets

Published on Nov 3, 2009 in Excel Howtos, Featured, Learn Excel
10 Tips to Make Better and Boss-proof Excel Spreadsheets

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. Read this post to learn 10 awesome excel tips to make better and boss-proof excel sheets.

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Switch Rows and Columns in Charts [Quick Charting Tip]

Published on Nov 2, 2009 in Charts and Graphs, Excel Howtos
Switch Rows and Columns in Charts [Quick Charting Tip]

Let us say you have built a nice chart showing your sales and profits for the top 5 products (learn how to highlight top 5 products in a list), with products on X axis. Suddenly your boss wants to switch the rows to columns (or transpose the chart) so that she can see metric level grouping instead of product level grouping. No need to freak out and rush to Espresso machine, You can do it very easily with Excel Charting features.

In today’s quick tip you will learn how to swap chart rows and columns in excel.

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